


Octopus Thoughts

by Carmen_Clodagh



Category: Death - Fandom, Horror - Fandom, Mystery - Fandom, Novels - Fandom, Original Work, Who did it? - Fandom, gore - Fandom, murder - Fandom
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 13:25:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 51,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17982167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmen_Clodagh/pseuds/Carmen_Clodagh





	1. Chapter 1

To any readers, this is all a work in progress and I am slowly editing my way though. Please be kind, this is my first full-length work. 

Chapter One:  
“I don’t understand how people can be so condescending when speaking about killers that get caught,” The teenager spoke in a soft voice, varying her pitch and tone just slightly. She sounded like a standardised commercial for how-to-quit smoking, “Not only is it a waste of time, but it truly admits that the commenter doesn’t have it in them to even attempt murder.”  
The teenager was known as Chelsea Smith; a sixteen-year-old grade-ten student of Sunflower Cove High School. Sunflower High was one of a few government projects that had allowed for extension into the twelfth year, which was formally known as ‘College’. It had no formal uniform, which was phased out as grade eleven and twelve were added. Chelsea was known to wag classes, kick teachers, and climb onto the roof between lessons to smoke a joint or cigarette. She wasn’t a textbook-academic, however; had what she called street-smarts.   
“That’s an interesting observation Chelsea,” The psychologist spoke equally as quiet, “Is there anything you’d like to elaborate on?” D’Wyatt, school-based psychologist and general counsellor, asked. She’d interned at the school as an undergraduate. Soon she’d manipulated her way into a promised job. So here she was, reliving the mind-numbing boring of childhood drama. This girl, however; peaked her interest.   
Caroline D’Wyatt was a classically beautiful woman, oval-faced, auburn-hair that dropped just below her petite ears, and deep, green eyes. She was always well made up, but; there was almost always a faint line visible under her foundation which seemingly was to disguise or cover a large scar at her jawline. Carol wore suit-shirts, this one was olive-green, paired with long plaid slacks.  
Chelsea thought a minute and took a deep breath before beginning again, “What those stupid reporters truly don’t understand; is that to become a killer, they’ve successfully killed. Premeditated or in the moment, that person is someone they wanted to kill, so they did. That’s a success. What happens after that fact is meaningless and predictable: jail time, a nice cell that’s rent free, T.V, hot food and healthcare. Sure, we’ll rot behind a wall-” Chelsea was suddenly cut off.  
“We’ll, do you mean we will, as in you and I, or, do you mean you and the other killers?”   
“Me and the other killers, of course, I’d rather that than a retirement village.”  
“So what age would be the right time to become a serial killer then, if you intend to avoid retirement villages?” Asked Caroline D’Wyatt with a slight chuckle. Chelsea was much more interesting than Mark Morrison and his stamp complex. The most interesting way he had ever suggested to murder someone, was to make them into stamps. An interesting idea, but a body is so massive, why only take a stamp sized trophy?  
Chelsea Smith had been a client since D’Wyatt started, and formerly had worked with every school-based psych since Grade 1. She had been in the system for years after her first incident; having stabbed a fork into the back of her teacher’s hand after he had confiscated her Tamagotchi.   
“About 45, maybe 50. Old enough to still be active, not too many ailments, not that it matters if you do because that’s all paid by taxes anyway, however; young enough not to have to worry about superannuation or trying to work out a retirement plan. Plenty of time inside to do things like, write, or draw, or do interviews for documentaries. If you had kids they’d be mostly grown up, then you wouldn’t be a burden to them either as you age.” Chelsea stretched across the armchair, leaning almost all the way off with her legs dangling over the backrest. Her face was pink with the extended blood-flow to her head.   
“Murder to help your family from supporting you in your old age. That’s rather clever really. At least you’ll never have to face the death-penalty in Australia. Did you know it takes eight times longer to catch a female serial killer? Do you have any answers for why that might be?” Carol D’Wyatt scrawled various notes across the diary she kept for clients, she was the kind of person that had to keep her hands busy, regularly doodling roses between the many paragraphs.   
“I could say something meme-based like “Well men don’t have to deal with blood every month, therefore making us great cleaners” but that discounts trans men who still suffer menstruation. I think it boils down to the fact that cis-gendered men are without-a-doubt the worst contingency planners, also; they never clean up after themselves. None of my exes ever did, what a way to start their cleaning career? By attempting to clean up the mess of a post-murder?” she sat up, her face returning to her normal colour before she started riffling around in her red, worn-out satchel bag; the Adidas logo slowly crumbling off. Chelsea came from a “disadvantaged” background, the school had informed Carol. Distant Father, Mother worked nights, most of the time after school was spent at the skate parks with boys much older than her. “So, can I smoke in here?” She took a pack of Rothman’s Reds from the inside of her bag’s side-pocket.  
“Only if you share with me,” D’Wyatt extended her hand, the girl looked surprised “I’m a psychologist, not a medical doctor. I care about your brain, not your lungs.” Carol took a silver lighter from her pocket, lit the cigarette and took a long drag before offering the lighter to the kid. The kid mirrored Carol’s actions, returning the lighter.   
“Any smoke alarms?” Smith asked curiously.   
“Took the batteries out months ago, please continue, you were saying something about men, murder, menstruation, anything else you’d like to add, Chelsea?” Carol could barely contain her boredom.   
Chelsea considered for a moment. Chelsea was fond of a rant and thought herself educated and intelligent. Every so often she did show glimpses of someone with much deeper understanding for her age. Other times she was certainly still 16. Carol held out hope that today would be a day where she would have something to unpack.   
“I’m still thankful for the news reports; outing the techniques that failed a would-be Ted Bundy. It makes it easier to select a way that is more likely to work. It also makes me think a lot about why they failed. Sometimes when I am unable to sleep at night, I mind map what I think are the fundamental faults with each method of killing. I am under no illusion about one factor in their demise: all were male. On that note, serial killers are more likely to be men also. I don’t think that’s necessarily true, I think they made stupid, poorly calculated risks because they had to compensate for lack of genitalia with ego--“  
“You’re repeating yourself again, and you’re being sexist, we all like sex, we all don’t need to shame people’s bodies or use that as a reason why they make poor-decisions,” D’Wyatt interrupted with a stern, condescending tone before she offered an empty Pepsi Can as a makeshift ashtray, “Get to the rest, I haven’t got all day. If you can’t move beyond blatant sexism as a reason, then I’m going to make you go back to P.E. You’re usually smarter than this.”   
“What would you do if you were to kill someone?” the curious teenager asked, meeting Carol’s eyes. Chelsea was a pretty girl. Synthetically box-died blue-black hair cut into an uneven bob (likely by her own hand) though often unkept and smelly. Her eyes were large and grey, with freckles concentrated around her nose. There was a gap between her front of her otherwise straight teeth, and signs of lip biting or picking. She was also part of the delusional group of teenagers who wore leggings as pants, complete with oversized, heavily branded “Nike” or “Hurley” jumpers. Carol could always smell mixtures of weed and nicotine, on her uncleaned body. Part of Carol felt sorry for her. The other part wished that it was legal to hose students down to prevent the smell. Thankfully it was nothing a room full of fresh cigarette smoke couldn’t mask. Carol had hoped Smith would have offered her a joint, her guess was that she was short of cash that week.   
“This session is about you, and I want to delve deeply into your ideas about why you think killers are so easy to spot, or catch, wherever you would like to start.” Carol finished her smoke, pumping strawberry-scented sanitiser into her hands after disposing of the butt. She offered a few squirts to the kid.   
“It’s all too common, you’d see the patterns in your job, wouldn’t you? Think of the weird, usually male, kid likes hurting pets, sometimes wets the bed, eventually watches porn, and getting into trouble with the law for petty things. Then grows up to be a man-child, meets girl, girl exercises the right to choose and rejects him. Man-child grows big and angry, turns to extreme porn, maybe the dark web shit, then, then,” Chelsea stood up, as if to act out the killer’s motions. Carol watched with interest. “Then starts seeing girls that remind him of the rejector, stalking begins,” Chelsea mockingly tiptoed to the window like a side-show-mime “Oh look! I see her! The woman that rejected me, oh hath, I cannot stand it, my beating heart is filled with anger, well fuck if I can’t have it then NO ONE CAN!” she seized a letter-opener from D’Wyatt’s desk and mimed dramatic stabbing into an invisible “body”.   
“Be careful with that, don’t hurt yourself. Also, that was a birthday present from my fiancée,” Carol stood and gently removed the opener from Smith’s hand “Anything else that you want to say, let’s leave drama-class out of it, please, your bouncing around is making my head hurt,” Both returned to their seats “Now, where were you up to?”  
“The killing, then the stalking, more killing, stalking, killing, rinse repeat. Hello? Can men at least find other motives? Why is it always about getting-a-bit? I can think of at least ten reasons to kill you, and I have only sat in your chair for less than an hour.” The girl leaned back into the greying armchair, the counsellors’ office was filled with orderly posters that shouted things like ‘What Zone of Regulation are You in Today?’ and ‘Talk to Your Teacher Today about how You Feel.”  
“So when was the last time you ‘got-a-bit’?” Carol asked, taking her eyes off her notebook.   
“Is it important?” the girl frowned, looking Carol up and down “Are you hitting on me?”  
“Are you gay?”   
“No?”   
“Then let’s assume this is, like it sounds like, a professional question relevant to me working you out some more, besides, I’m happily engaged, thanks for asking.”   
“Not to mention, you’re keeping me out of P.E!” Chelsea whistled.   
“So, answer the question, what part does sex play in your life? Would you ever be sexually-frustrated enough to murder someone?” Carol clicked her pen impatiently.   
“Well, I get some at least three times a week, and, I think I am pretty enough that I could just ask, and someone would fuck me. I always thought I would end up a stripper if I failed high-school, hell, you don’t have to be smart to be pretty.” Carol knew she was serious. Most of the neighbourhood where Chelsea lived was a part of the red-light-district. Chelsea was only of average smarts, but rarely applied herself.   
“Sexual frustration isn’t a motive for you right now at least, so what is?”   
“I don’t like the perfume you use, it smells like the one my brother buys Grandmother. Probably has a little, red door on the bottle, right?” She looked out the window into the playground. This was the fourth time this week she’d been sent to this office. It was only Tuesday.   
“Actually, it belongs to my partner. She keeps getting it for Christmas, she’s 47 so I guess she might be old enough to be most peoples’ Grandmother, well, at least the kids in this school. I find it often rubs off on my clothes.” It was well-known that D’Wyatt’s wife-to-be was Megan Hornstone and an upstart police officer. The lovers were the source of many a playground chat and emotional breakdown; as many students had large crushes on them both.  
“She should regift that this year,” Chelsea sighed loudly “11 reasons to kill you now.”  
“Enlighten me…”  
“You haven’t said anything interesting. If I must stay here till lunchtime, can’t we at least have an interesting conversation?”  
“Alright Chelsea Smith, even though my job is basically to listen and provide advice, and, we have already exhausted all the plans we could possibly make to “get you back to class” why don’t you tell me, even though they’re based largely on the data of male, adult killers, that you’ve found either on the internet, or in fictional shows like Sherlock Holmes; you must surely know where you fit on the risk factors for becoming a serial killer?” Carol poured two cups of tea from an ornate teapot. She wasn’t in the habit of entertaining students with such things, but Smith was interesting, and Carol would do anything to dull off the boredom she faced until the lunch bell.  
“Well, I’m not a bed-wetter, I haven’t had a violent upbringing, I haven’t been abused. I’m not sexually odd in anyway that’s not appropriate for a 16-year-old, I watch porn but who doesn’t? Perhaps I just have distaste for all mankind. I do enjoy your taste in tea, much better than the commercial brand Mother stocks the kitchen with.” She stirred a sugar cube into her cup daintily.  
“You don’t behave like you enjoy my tea, you’re ruining it with sugar,” Carol frowned deeply “And if you’re going to portray yourself as a misanthrope, I’m going mock you… Would you say that you were neglected as you grew up? I hear both your parents weren’t really present in your life, have you considered that impact as maybe contributing to some attachment-type-disorder?” She poured herself cup with a little lemon.  
“I like sugar, it puts me in a good mood. I don’t think I have abandonment issues” She sipped her tea, mockingly sticking her pinkie-finger out.   
“Now, now Chelsea, I will not have this childishness, drink it properly or I’ll get you a Sippy-Cup for next time... So, you’re not finding comfort in the beds of teenage boys? You have a lot of sex for someone who is only sixteen” Carol watched Smith study her cup before meeting her eyes.   
“I’m over the age of sexual consent, it’s my body, I’m not doing it with anyone more than five-years-older than me, just like the law states,” she paused “This tea is different, what is it?” Carol could see her swishing the tea around her mouth.   
“It’s my own blend, I get it custom made and sent from India, are you feeling ok now?” Her voice sounded far away, as if on the other side of fish-tank. Carol’s tea was normal, it was the sugar that had the potent sedative Sodium Amytal mixed in with it. Sodium Amytal has been used since the early 1920s after it’s development in Germany. Many doctors found it an effective sedative, and, somewhat of a tongue-loosener. Law enforcement once used it to gain a confession, now Carol uses it to relax her students so that they can truly hear her and express themselves more freely. It had a bitter taste which was easily hidden by the sugar. It dispelled from the body anywhere between eight and forty-eight hours. 

Chelsea’s vision blurred, but she felt calm, with heavy limbs. As if she’d been anchored to the armchair. Carol sat her teacup to the side.  
“You don’t need any more tea, I can see you’re already affected,” She gently cupped Smith’s cheek and checked her eyes “Are you alright?”  
“I’m fine,” Chelsea found herself saying without her brain telling her to “This stuff is niffy, can you sell me some stuff, for later?... Wait, you haven’t roofied me, have you?”  
“Honey, you are not my type, and I am no rapist. No, we are just going to talk. You’re only getting some of my special tea because you’ve got a great, big, boring wall up Miss Smith, this is just something to make it easier to talk, you’re safe, you’re calm. When you’re ready, we’ll talk... so tell me, are you a serial killer, or are you just a wannabe? Let me into that deep, dark well inside the middle of your mind, tell me every little, slimy Octopus Thought, even if it doesn’t make a lot of sense, just say it anyway. I’m just going to sit here and take notes. I’ll help you make sense of it another day.” Carol returned to her seat, watching the young, drugged girl snuggle into the arm-chair.   
“Will I get out of Science class too?”   
“That can be arranged. If you say anything interesting.” Carol pulled a small tape recorder from her pocket and set it to record.   
“What’s an Octopus Thought? Did you know that I sometimes dream about sending people into a woodchipper? You know, the ones that really deserve it” Chelsea asked as she returned to her bat-like position on the armchair.   
“No, I didn’t, but park that thought and just listen. An Octopus Thought is what I call an intrusive set of thoughts, feelings, research, predictions, anything really that gets stuck in the brain and is added onto, like tentacles. Have you ever been to an aquarium Chelsea?” Carol watched as she nodded, eyes rolling in her head slightly “The Octopuses, or Octopodes as I prefer to call them, are incredible creatures, they display advanced learning, problem solving, near-human intelligence. When you look at their bodies, their shape is like a metaphor for intrusive thoughts. Here you have a central idea at the head, in this case, your wannabe-murderer ideas. The head of the octopus is this pulsating, changeable, almost manipulatable material. Collected to the central idea ‘I want to be a murderer’ in your case, is eight legs. Each leg represents a step: why, who, what, when, where, how, executing the act, and, the eighth is getting away with it, or, facing the consequences. That’s an Octopus Thought. You’ve been having them for a while without letting me in on all the details.” Carol sketched an octopus onto the notepad below her paragraphs on Chelsea, carefully watching the teenager.   
Chelsea closed her eyes, she was neither awake nor asleep. She felt as though she was floating on a salt filled ocean her vision shimmered even in the blackness of behind her eyelids.   
“I don’t know that I could ever kill someone with my hands… I feel like, poisoning their air, or their food, or their water, to watch them suffer slowly over time. Or be like that woman that poisoned a whole lot of pain-killer bottles, just to hide the fact that they wanted desperately to kill their husband…”   
Carol scrawled notes into the first of the tentacles “Do you know what their mistakes were?” Carol’s voice sounds like it was coming from under water. Chelsea felt the need to give an answer.   
“Something about fish-food, and the fact that they had two of the ‘tampered with’ bottles. Had she just used a clean plate and spoon, and only had one bottle of the stuff in her house, she would have totally gotten away with it. What was their name? Am I even awake?”   
“You’re dreaming. None of this holds any impact to your real life…” Carol sounded quieter, Chelsea had to strain to hear, as though they were plunging into an abyss together “So you’d poison someone. How would you make sure that you killed the right person?”   
There was a long silence, Chelsea’s eyes rolled into the back of her head for a few moments “It sounds crazy, but I’d poison their shower water. Something potent that can get into their nose and mouth but doesn’t burn the skin so doesn’t leave any residue. Then halfway through that process, but, after they’ve had enough, turn the shower back on to normal. That way by the time the body is found, hopefully it would be washed away of at least most of the evidence of the substance that was used until they were on the autopsy table. By that time, I’ll be long gone. All I must do, is make sure I buy certain things over a certain amount of time to make my poison, or, like steal little bits from other peoples’ houses. Like my friends, neighbours, the school here. Mix them together so there’s no one ‘batch’ that can trace back to the plant, and then to the store that it was distributed to. Then I’ll mess with the pipes in the place of my intended victim so that they must call in a plumber, he’ll come in and fix it, there will be his prints all over everything. All I’ll have to do is undo his work the day after, so that people can complain the guy didn’t do his job, but not before the first two non-victims have a shower. Then after we are sure it’s not working, victim will have a shower anyway because they are ‘late to whatever’ and BAM! I’ll get them.” Chelsea smiled in her daze.   
Carol finished filling every tentacle, including the seventh. Next was the most important one “And how would you then escape…You don’t want to be the first one to find the body, they always suspect the one that finds the body. Also, how are you going to guarantee that the poison gets into his mouth or eyes, most people shut those when they’re under the shower water.” Carol mentioned casually.   
“Well, I’m thinking about one of my current fuck-buddies Michael Caste, firstly, he has a sinus problem. Practically always has his mouth open. Secondly, after I’m done, I’ll just sneak back to his bed, and make sure that I am ‘woken up’ in the commotion.”   
“A solid plan, but you’re likely going to be a suspect. Being a lover?”   
“Not when Amy is a scorned lover, he dumped her for me you know. I can’t believe I used to be her best friend, we used to braid each other’s hair all the time in fourth grade.”  
“So, a problem that already exists, a scorned lover, a solid reason for being there, not bad kiddo. That’s one of the better motives and thought out plans that I have heard in quite a while. I’m impressed. You’ve filled in a whole Octopus. Here, please drink some water. You’re likely having a migraine, I’ll get the nurse to send you home ok?” Carol hauled Chelsea to her feet, helping her sip a bottle of water. Chelsea felt hungover, headachy and tired. Before she knew it, she was laying in the nurse’s office with no recollection of the many hours she’d spent in Dr. Caroline D’Wyatt’s office. Carol of course, filled in the answers.   
“What happened, Carol?” the nurse asked with interest “She’s been in there all morning?”   
“She was tired, said she hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten, I got her some food, let her have a lay down on my couch while I just did some paper work. When she woke up, she just wanted someone to listen about how much she hates school. The she started complaining of a migraine, so I brought her here, figured she’d at least got a couple of hours uninterrupted sleep in my room because who knows what we will be sending her back to. Can’t she just stay here? I mean at least until school ends, at least we know she’s getting looked after.”   
Carol was an A-grade liar, and great at faking genuine concern. So much so that the principal agreed with her to keep Chelsea with the nurse for the rest of the day.   
Carol returned to her dingy office and opened both windows and all curtains. She quickly hid the rest of her special tea into a locked safe hidden in her filling cabinet, before spraying the room with a citrus-based air freshener to mask the smell of her indiscretion.   
Open on her desk was the file belonging to Chelsea Smith. She started thinking about how Chelsea’s off-the-cuff shower murder might make sense. She turned on her private router and set up her VPN. Her fiancée had taught her how do encrypted browsing, so that she could search things that the public-school system would disagree with. Sometimes, Carol liked to make ‘Kids’ dreams happen’ – in the morbid sense that she would research the ways that kids suggested they would use to kill people, purely out of her morbid curiously to see it would work.   
The first tentacles she focussed her efforts on were the ‘how’ and ‘why’ by searching effective, water-soluble poisons, that are effective in small quantities – to counteract the dissipation and dilution that the shower water adds to the variables. D’Wyatt came upon the common rust remover, or hydrofluoric acid. While it would leave external damage to the body; such as rashes, and pain, it would, in high enough doses, cause death.   
The next tentacles intertwined with ‘how’ and ‘who’. Someone would need to convince the fictious plumber in Smith’s scenario, to use, or at least leave behind the rust cleaner he would be using to clean out the pipes belonging to the shower. The death wouldn’t be immediate, but it would leave enough evidence to suggest that the plumber was negligent. Leaving Chelsea in the clear. The important thing would be keeping the boyfriend under the supply for long enough to ensure death would be the outcome. Given his sinus problem, he’s unlikely to smell his fate, but he is going to feel it. Chelsea would have to turn off the cold water, to disguise the pain from the poison, for the pain of scolding burns. This would leave much more time from exposure, to his exit, then ultimately going outside to find a hose or some kind of cold water “It would be excellent,” Carol thought “If whatever it was also reacted to cold air to intensify the effect, though, that might bring attention to the poison,”  
Carol leaned back into her chair, stretching her arms behind her head “Now, to the most important part, how to get away with it. If we were to try for negligent plumber, and that gets thrown out, we should make sure the fingers are pointed at Amy. I should get Amy into my office, subtly tell her that her man has moved on to Chelsea and find out some way of suggesting that their favourite sex-spot is in the shower. She is also a good candidate to give me a full octopus on her feelings, which could be useful as evidence later. I could also put in a call to Children and Family Services about Amy, that I am worried for her, and ex-boyfriend’s safety,” Carol yawned before opening a can of tuna. She gently spread it onto some crackers before quietly eating “It’s an almost perfect plan, I just need a detective’s input, then the fun begins.”   
Part of Carol’s “dreams come true” mantra included the use of her fiancée in tentacle eight. If Megan could always be the first on scene, she could remove the slip-ups that inexperienced, or in this case, deeply framed individuals make. Ensuring that fingers point squarely where Carol wanted them to be. Carol closed her computer and decided to take her tuna crackers for a walk around the school.  
The students were at lunch, and the lockers and internal spaces were off-limits for the hour. The staff either took up a seat in the staffroom to complain about their students or hid away in their offices to take intimate Skype calls with family members that required credit-card details before talking. It was unlikely that Carol would be bothered in the ninth-to-tenth-grade locker-room. Carol finished her crackers before putting on a pair of cotton gloves, followed by un-powered latex gloves. She learned this trick from Megan. Megan had told her that so many people are unaware that their fingerprints can be lifted through most gloves. Carol didn’t take chances.   
Amy and Chelsea’s lockers were separated by two that belonged to early-pubescent soccer players. Unfortunately, the lockers were not enough to contain the smell of gym socks and crusty underwear. Carol wrinkled her nose as she slid a bobby-pin from her hair. Picking a lock was something Chelsea had shown her in a session long ago. It was a useful trick in this situation. She swiftly undid Chelsea’s locker revealing reasonably ordered content. There were a few binders with notes from classes. A freshly laundered gym-uniform (likely never worn), a very old ham sandwich and other rotten food, her Adidas handbag containing wallet, housekeys and phone. Carol removed the phone and was surprised to find it didn’t need a passcode. She went directly into her text messages, looking for any conversation between Michael, Amy, and Chelsea.   
Michael was a dim, ninth-grade individual, poor grammar, sent a lot of dick-picks and asked for booty-calls on a regular basis. He even suggested that she, Amy and he have a threesome in the gym before school. A true Romeo.   
Amy, however; sent several threats, some mundane like ‘punch your face in’ and others more serious like ‘be careful what you eat and drink bitch because it might be your last.’ Carol was impressed at how Chelsea’s subconscious must have absorbed Amy’s threat. Chelsea had responded by threatening to shive her in the playground or kill Amy’s dogs. Her plan could work with a little help in tentacle six and seven. It would take a few more sessions with both girls to iron out the details, but Carol was looking forward to pitching the idea to her lover.   
Carol returned to her office and disposed of both gloves into her handbag. She would be sure to dispose of them as far away to the school as possible. It was 1:30pm, she knew that Megan would be on break. She decided to check in.   
“Hey babe, what’s going on?” Megan answered, she had a thick, country Australian accent, hoarse from many years of shouting after criminals.   
“You know how much I love octopods…” Carol sounded ominous, a tone Megan knew well.   
“What do you have?” Megan lowered her voice “Don’t have much time, gotta go shut down a meth lab soon.”   
“Oh, just a kid I’m working with, wants to kill someone with a poison shower…” Carol tapped her fingers arithmetically on her desk.   
“Sounds complicated, I think we could do it, do you think it’s possible to find someone to frame?” Carol could almost hear the evil grin upon Megan’s face.   
“Minor complications, a lot of framing, but I reckon we can do it. You know how much I like to make children’s dreams come true.” Carol spoke through a pouted lip.   
“I know baby, you work out some of the details, we’ll discuss it when you get home. Don’t make it too elaborate, you almost got suspected last time, you need to stop taking risks.”   
“Do you want me to brew you some tea when you get in?”   
“As long as you wear that black-lace-thing I bought you last week, bye baby, try not to get into too much trouble. I’ll be home at 5.”   
“You better promise.”  
“I promise,” Megan said sincerely “Love you.”   
“Love you too.”  
Megan and Carol lived in the outer suburb of Raymont, roughly fifteen minutes from the city centre. They lived next to an abandoned school which once was “Raymont Primary” – now a derelict building, boarded up and frequented by squatters. Carol had purchased the school on a whim, as a place they could use for planning, practicing, and making sure their ideas would work. The last squatters that tried to take up habitation in the building left without four of their fingers. Carol was never suspected, and Megan had managed to blame a local drug dealer. No one had ever found the fingers.   
Carol arrived home just after four, parking her blue Mazda two in their garage. Megan often had to leave for work at crazy hours, so it was better that her car was packed in the driveway. Their house was a modest four-bedroom, two story kit-home. Megan had built it long before meeting Carol, but together they had slowly been modernising it and renovating it.   
Carol had a luxurious style, like a femme-fatale from an old Hollywood photo. The bedroom an en-suite were the first parts of their renovations. Black-and-white tiles, silver-gilded accessories, fur, velvet; a feast for the senses. Carol decided to shower to the remove the smell working in a high-school came with. Directly in front of the glass shower door was the vanity mirror. Carol could see her makeup wash from her face which revealed the scar of a human bite-mark on her jaw.   
It was no secret to Megan that Carol and their relationship was sadomasochistic, with Carol taking submissive role most of the time. Carol derived pleasure from pain, and Megan was the perfect person to fulfil her fantasies. Megan often found that sex with Carol relieved much of the pressure and built up frustration from her work as a policewoman. The bite on Carol’s jaw was, however; not from Megan, but one of Carol’s past lovers. Megan and Carol had rules for leaving marks: nothing visible when wearing normal clothing. Never ignoring safe-words (theirs was “red for stop, green for go and orange for keep going but prepare to stop”) and no drawing blood without permission before the event. Carol loved to set scenes for her lover to arrive home to. Tonight, Megan had requested tea and black-lace, but often she would request that Carol be her nurse, maid, teacher, or a criminal from one of her cases.   
Carol lingered in the shower when her ears caught the sound of someone entering their house. She paused, turning the water down a little. It was Megan, already naked, entering the bathroom and ultimately the shower with her. Carol kissed her passionately.   
“I thought you wouldn’t be home until 5!” Carol said breathlessly, taking comfort in Megan’s muscular arms.  
Carol was just over five foot while Megan stood firmly at six-foot-three. For just shy of fifty, Megan was lean, muscular and tan. Her skin had many freckles but not many wrinkles. Her eyes were almost black, just like her long, brown hair.   
“Surprise my-love, I got off early, I let the young ones deal with the meth lab, too much work, wanted to save some energy for you.” She kissed Carol in a wild frenzy, covering her freshly clean skin in lipstick marks. Carol closed her eyes and placed a hand in her lover’s crotch, gently stimulating Megan’s penis. Megan was transgender and began transitioning around Carol’s age. She’d never felt the need to fully transition and have her penis removed. It didn’t bother either of them. Megan had, had breast augmentations, and her Adam’s apple shaved. Megan was the most beautiful woman Carol had met, and the two were deeply in love.   
“I love you. I’m glad you saved some energy for me, because I want to be worn out,” breathlessly, Carol tried to find some grip in the shower cubicle “It’s cramped in here, shall we move?” Megan lifted Carol as she wrapped her legs around Megan’s waist “You didn’t give me a chance for the lace and the tea.” Carol could barely speak through lust, all she wanted was the connection with Megan.   
“The lace would have only ended up on the floor anyway. Plus, I wouldn’t want to tear it off and wreck it.” Megan laid Carol down across their king-sized bed, and began kissing down her body, first across the jaw and scar, then down her neck, breasts, waist before pausing.   
“Don’t stop…” Carol held her lovers head down gently “You’re teasing me…” Carol moaned.   
“What are you going to do for me…?” Megan asked, blowing air softly on Carol’s clitoris, causing her to moan.   
“Anything you want, just don’t leave me on the edge, I’ve been thinking about this all day…” Carol grabbed the bed sheets above her head, arching her back towards her lover.   
“Alright then, I want you to beg…” She touched her tongue softly.   
“Please! I can’t stand it, make me cum!” Carol groaned.   
“Do you want toys?”   
“No, just you, come on… finish me…” Carol grabbed the ears of her lover roughly, putting her legs around Megan’s shoulders.   
“Now, now you little brat,” Megan said grinning “You don’t get to make demands,” She spanked Carol’s ass erotically “Now say you’re sorry.”   
“I’m sorry! But I’m so horny… Please…?” Carol pouted.   
“Alright then…” Megan said, “I’m going to mount you, and then I’m going pound you,” Megan pushed Carol roughly into the pillows before lifting her legs over her shoulders. She reached into the beside cabinet and pulled out police issue handcuffs, using them to cuff Carols arms above her head.   
“Oh officer…” Carol said breathlessly “I’m so ready for my punishment.”


	2. Chapter 2

Amy Legion was a fifteen-year-old ninth-grade student. She shared some of Chelsea’s classes in maths and English. Amy would have described herself as a typical “All Australian Girl” with tan skin, long legs, and naturally bleach-blonde which curled in natural ‘beachy’ waves. Amy had a heart shaped face with a deep widow’s peak. Her eyes were closer together than most, with hooded lids that partially covered her murky blue eyes.   
Carol considered Amy an optimal victim for framing within the Octopus Plan. While academically smart, Amy had an addiction to drama, manipulation, and most importantly revenge.   
Carol looked within Legion’s file located on Student Support Services, or “SSS” as it is called; a database of student information introduced in the early 2000’s. Each file is accessible by staff members from the school and will show things like grades, notes on conversations with parents or outside services, also observations of things that happened within school – like when Chelsea stabbed her teacher with a fork.   
Amy’s file was full of useful background information that was perfect for the plan: She’d attempted to poison a friend by shoving pencil shavings and Textas within the student’s drink-bottle while they were at gym class in third grade. The reason she gave for that was that the victim had stolen half a friendship necklace off a mutual friend. This resulted in three days suspension and the victim moving classes. In fifth grade she got a male teacher fired by stealing his phone out of his desk and getting her friends to take ‘compromising’ photos within secluded parts of the school. No action was taken against the teacher after Amy confessed, but he was politely transferred to a different school. Finally, last year, she faked a pregnancy, naming Michael as the father. The event went so far that Amy bought a silicon baby-bump and even had a baby shower.   
Close to the nine-month mark, Amy ‘tragically lost her baby’ by dramatically falling down the stairs at the front of the school. All of this had happened approximately the same time Michael lost interest in their relationship and started perusing Chelsea. Amy even went so far as to smear the words “Baby Killers!” in her own menstrual blood across both Michael and Amy’s lockers, blaming them for the ‘miscarriage’ of her supposed son. Amy had been referred to Carol for help, but regularly rescheduled or ditched on her appointments. Carol was going to make sure she started attending more frequently; it was going to be important to the execution of this plan.   
Carol decided to pull Amy from Maths class into her office. Carol didn’t care that Maths class was Amy’s favourite, but she thought that she would possibly give answers quicker if she had something that she was looking forward to getting back to.   
The teenager was dressed in skinny, light-wash jeans, a white crop-top, and a red, plaid flannelette shirt over the top. She was also wearing clean, well-kept, horse riding boots. Carol wasn’t sure if she rode horses, or if it was another delusional fashion ideal Carol didn’t understand.  
“Why did you break me out of class, Dr. D’Wyatt?” Amy spoke with a synthetic American accent.   
“You’ve been avoiding my appointments and wasting my time, now I’m going to waste some of yours. There’s things we need to speak about and resolve,” Carol opened her office door and gestured that the student be seated “Can I offer you a bottle of water?” Carol asked as she took one for herself from a small bar fridge next to her desk. The student nodded.   
Carol handed the bottle of water, studying the subtle movements of Amy’s face “How do you feel today, Amy?”   
“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Amy said frowning “I still don’t get why the fuck I am here?”  
“Let’s talk about your menstrual cycle, and how you felt the need to let everyone know what time of the month you were in at the point where you smeared the words “Baby Killers” across the lockers of two peers. Did you not have a friend you could have asked for a pad or tampon? I mean I’m sure the school nurse could have provided some for you?” Carol spoke without blinking or breaking eye-contact. Amy could see the knowing look across her face.   
“Let’s cut the bullshit D’Wyatt, you know why I did that, they killed my baby”   
“Ah yes, that fictitious baby, the one that used to try and keep Michael into a relationship he didn’t want, a relationship he wanted with Chelsea Smith instead. You can stop bullshitting me, Miss Legion, I know the kind of games people like you play. It was a very poor way of getting revenge for a break up. What I want you to do today is, using hindsight, what could you have done better?” Carol clicked her pen and opened a fresh page in her notebook. She also slipped her hand into her suit pant pocket and turned her tape recorder onto record. Carol had to break the ice.   
“What do you do for fun Amy?”   
“Fun? I guess I hang out with my three dogs…”  
“Three dogs? Do you have a kennel licence?”   
“No… One of them is only a chihuahua, Kayden, He’s not really a dog, who cares anyway.”  
“What are the other two?” Carol made a note.  
“Corgis? Why are you asking?”   
“Just interested. Littered pair?”  
Amy shook her head. “No… two boys, Cooper and Murray, different parents, different breeders, similar ages though. They all love each other though.” Amy went quiet again.   
“Do you ride horses, Amy?”   
“What?”   
“Your shoes, they’re those that horse riders wear right? I used to ride horses when I was your age, my family had a stable. My favourite was a six-year-old mare named Cobalt.” Carol’s family were all academics and would never had set foot in a stable. Carol, however; didn’t care if she had to lie to gain the trust of her clients, she just kept small notes to keep track of who she told which story.   
“I do on weekends. Mum thinks it’s good for me to have a weekend job, I must muck out the stables and do the grooming. I don’t wear these shoes to do that, I wear those almost over-the-knee gumboots. These are my good pair that I am trying to break in for competitions. I like doing dressage.” There was fondness in Amy’s voice accompanied with a the glassy-eyed look of reflection.   
“Do you have a favourite horse?”   
“There’s this old Clydesdale, he used to pull carriages for weddings, now he’s retired to our property. He’s so gentle, he’ll let me ride him without a saddle, he likes to take walks in the streams…”   
“What’s his name?”   
“Andre, I would have called the baby Andre too, after him.”  
“But the baby isn’t real, the baby was never real,” Carol said sternly “You do know that, right?”  
“It was real… just not for the length of time I played it out for, I lost it around sixteen weeks. Then when I heard Michael was going to leave me, I just… I just continued playing it up, hoping that he would stay.” Amy sounded forced sincere.   
Carol rolled her eyes slightly, if this wasn’t a Home and Away soap-opera plot, she didn’t know what was. She still was not convinced that a baby even exited, but that this child had concocted a fantasy to keep her boyfriend was still very likely.   
“Let’s just focus on the incident with the blood on the lockers. What led up to that, can you explain your thinking? Then we will move on to what you would have done differently…” Carol cracked open the water-bottle and took a long gulp.   
Amy sighed “I just wanted everyone to think that one of them had pushed me down the stairs, I needed to kill off the baby, it was almost time for one to appear and I had an empty womb, I panicked, so I set up scene and faked it, and faked the death of the baby.”   
“But you forgot things didn’t you. You forgot that babies near term need to a have a funeral, and you started telling people that you simply put him, Andre, in the bin.” Carol started drawing an octopus.   
“Well yeah, because that was partly true. It sort-of fell out of me in the toilet, a little weird not quite human thing. Like a baby rabbit almost. It was dead, there was no way of it living. So, I scooped it out with a towel, wrapped it up and put it in a shoe box.” Amy played with her hair, a nervous twitch thought Carol.   
“What did you do with the body in the box? Did you bury it, did you throw him away?” This girl was now just as interesting as Chelsea, far better than the Mum and Dad problems she dealt with, with the lower grades. Carol tilted her head and waited for Amy to make eye-contact.   
“I still have him… I put him in the freezer in the stables, under the salt-licks and other foods we freeze. Sometimes we just freeze big lots of water and hang it in the horses’ stables when it’s hot. No one really goes in there since we got a bigger freezer, but I told Mum it’s a good place to store icy-poles and other treats for the staff.” Carol sensed she was being truthful.   
“On top of a dead baby body?”  
“Well, no one else knows he’s there, and I mean, I wrapped him up really good in plastic and stuff. People would probably just mistake him as a dog treat.”   
“How often do you check he’s still there?”   
“Every time I go to work or go for a ride on Andre.”   
“So, what’s your plan. What are you going to do with him? He can’t stay in a freezer forever can he, what’s the plan for him? Does it have anything to do with Michael by any chance?”   
Amy took a deep breath and closed her eyes contemplatively. She ran her hands through her hair and tied it up into a messy bun with a hair-tie from her wrist. Carol waited, raising one eyebrow as she examined the beauty ritual. Even in a psychologist’s office, students always felt the need to preen “Any moment now you’re going to say something, I mean, I get paid either way, but I’d rather chat and listen than sip my spring water and watch you make an uneven bun on your head.” Carol’s tone was flat.  
“It’s uneven?”   
“It’s irrelevant.”   
“You’re a bitch, Dr. D’Wyatt, why can’t you just act nice to people, why would anyone want to talk to you when you’re being a bitch to them?” Amy scowled which wrinkled her brows.   
“Not paid to be nice, paid to give hard truths. Don’t frown so hard, you’ll get wrinkles. Now, what are you going to do with the body of the baby you have frozen in the freezer under Paddle-Pops?” Carol was persistent. Carol stood and walked toward her fridge, on top of which was a kettle. She started its boiling process. “Would you like a cup of tea to settle your nerves before we continue to talk?”   
Amy nodded. Carol pulled down her ornate teapot, fetched her tea caddy from her filing cabinet and started brewing their tea. She brought it to the coffee-table on a small tray with sugar, and lemon.   
“No milk?” Asked Amy.   
“This tea doesn’t need milk, it’s left to steep until it becomes a drinkable temperature.”  
Amy immediately reached for the sugar cubes.   
“Only one or you’ll ruin the tea. Trust me, years more tea-drinking than you.” Carol squeezed lemon into her cup before taking a sip.   
Amy caressed the cup with both hands.   
“So, Andre. What are your intentions?”   
“Honestly? I was going to sneak him into Michael’s bed, hopefully somewhere he’d only find when he’s fucking that whore.”  
“Bit of a waste, all that would do would make him cry. Wouldn’t turn him off sex, he probably would throw it out the window thinking his cat brought it in. Not many men know what miscarried babies look like. Well, maybe if you were trans female to male after having a miscarriage, but; they kinda just look like weird, mal-formed aliens hey? I mean what were you, sixteen weeks? I’ll have to remind myself what that’d even look like. Hold on,” Carol walked to her bookcase and pulled out an anatomy book. It was a handy book to keep around, especially when dealing with boys complaining that their girlfriends don’t feel satisfied by sex. Half of them don’t even know where the clitoris is, so how could they be pleasuring their lovers? Carol flicked through a few pages till she came up on the one about gestation “Ah! Here we go, avocado with limbs. See, it’s like an alien, it doesn’t even look really like a human. What did you do with the placenta?”   
“Kept that too…”   
“Frozen with the ice-cream, planning on eating that?” Carol asked with genuine interest.   
“What?! Ew!” Amy’s face looked horrified.   
“Many women in different practices happen to eat it, it’s good for you. Well, maybe not so much now being freezer burned like a Paddle-Pop, but, still, might be good. Drink your tea, it’s getting cold.”   
Amy took a big gulp of tea, swished it around, and swallowed it “I’ve always preferred coffee.”  
“Does that go with your faux-American-cow-girl aesthetic?”   
“You’re such a bitch.”   
“Well we could we talk about what I have been trying to get you to talk about, but you’ve got a big wall up. So boring.”   
Suddenly Amy fell into one of Carol’s abyss-like trances. For the first time in a long time Amy felt relaxed, heavy, anchored to the chair. Carol took away her cup and set it aside. She pulled a weighted-blanket over Amy with some care, ensuring she was warm and comfortable for her experience with the Octopus.   
“Are you ok?” Carol asked, but she sounded so very far away.  
“I’m fine, I’m ready to talk if you’re ready to listen.” Amy closed her eyes, she was neither awake nor asleep, she was calm and felt like over-sharing.   
“So, what do you want to tell me?” Carol took out a pen and held it at the ready “What would you like to do with Michael, Chelsea and Andre.”   
“Can you believe Michael asked me to have sex with them both? What a fucking, fucktard. How dare he think I would want to be anywhere near him and that whore.”  
Carol thought back to the vulgar text messages she’d read on Chelsea’s phone in the locker-room.   
“Threesomes are messy, one person always feels left out, I don’t suggest them.” Carol sipped more of her tea.   
“Are you allowed to say shit like this to a student, Doctor?”   
“You’re in a dream, what I say doesn’t matter.” She drew details into octopus on the notebook, spreading out eight tentacles. She wasn’t sure what was going to be in the head, so she tentatively scribbled ‘Revenge’ and ‘Andre’. While not completely convinced the kid had a foetus frozen in a freezer in a stable, she was willing to hear her through.   
“A dream, so I can say anything I want?” Amy asked.  
“Of course.”   
“I wish there was some way for Chelsea to pay for taking away my man. When we were friends, we used to pass notes about the messiest way to kill would be, she used to like the idea of a grinding people up, into chunks, I’d like to put her in the chipper the groundsman uses in order to make trees into,” yawns “Not trees? Woodchips. Then I can send Andre to be with his dad.”   
“You’d shred your own child?” Carol leaned in slightly, running her tongue behind her teeth, making a note to follow up these thoughts with Chelsea later.  
“It would make it interesting for police wouldn’t it?”   
“Well no actually because it takes two sets of DNAs to make a baby, they’d instantly think it was you… that is, unless you went into the chipper as well, then they’d have to point the finger at someone else.”   
“I wouldn’t mind going through the chipper.” Amy felt as though her body was already in a million pieces floating around the office like Mike T.V in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. All she wanted to do was stay floating in this dark ocean, shimmering in the black air.   
Carol filled in tentacle seven and eight with the words “Woodchipper?”   
Carol wasn’t getting enough of a plan to fill out a full octopus for Amy. Even sedated, she was a closed book. Carol felt the need to go and explore the stables. She forced a bottle of water with a counter-affect to the sedative into Amy’s mouth.   
“Alright Amy, how about I come to the stable, and see the Andre’s? Maybe that will help us make sense of how I can help you?”  
Amy was confused, she felt as though she’d lost time, but wasn’t sure how much. The clock seemingly hadn’t moved. Carol showed her the way out of her office, but not before getting an address for the sable. Amy went back to class.   
Carol knew the girl worked weekends so that would be the perfect time she would attend the stable. Her motive for going, was to recover the frozen foetus, if there was one, and she would use the ruse of wanting to take casual riding lessons. Carol sat down at her desk, calling Megan as she did.   
“Hey babe, I’m alone in my office, are you?” Megan asked.   
“Yes… and I’m not wearing any panties… More importantly, I have a kid in my care that is willing to put someone through a woodchipper.”   
“Interesting,” Megan sounded excited “Messy, too likely to get caught.”   
“Is it though? If the chunks were, say, scattered into a lake, or quarry, or somewhere where animals were hungry?”   
“What about the machine? How on earth would you clean the DNA off it?”   
“You’re the detective, not me, ok, think smaller, sausage machine, the mincer from a butcher. Smaller, the bodies would be needing to be in pieces first, however, much easier to clean, and, if you pumped through some other meats after, it would make sense for it to be dirty or used.”   
“Are you making sure that you’re taking notes on these kids, in the formal way, making sure that you’re putting in all the relevant calls, so that there’s a paper trail?” Megan sounded concerned.   
“Don’t worry baby, I’m about to call Child Protective Services about ‘what I have heard’ straight after talking to you. I might be later home than you tonight, would you like me to pick up some food on my way?”   
“I’d love some KFC, you know what I like, I trust you, I’ll be home about six-ish.”   
“Yeah I’ll be much later, I’ve got triple S notes to make about these three kids, and I have to be “raising concerns with class teachers and in part, parents” not that I can divulge much because of patient-doctor confidentiality.” Carol was always calm, she almost always had an answer for everything.   
Carol opened her computer and logged into the student support services terminal, she logged into the account of another teacher Bryan Williams, who taught Chelsea for homeroom; Carol had managed to guess his password years ago, it only ever changed by one number. Carol used his account to glean information about students and make notes that she, as a psychologist treating the students, wasn’t allowed to make due to her confidentiality laws. Once logged on she made notes about some of the threats she had ‘overheard’ or ‘observed’. She also made fake attempts to call family members to ‘raise [his] concerns’ but would simply log the call time and click ‘no answer/no response’ – this way, the information was forwarded to the Principal for follow-up. Bryan’s account wasn’t the only one she would use, she also had access (with Megan’s help) to most staff. Being the psychologist, Carol kept her own records on a closed server only accessible by court order. Carol hit send on her current notes, forwarding them to the Principal.   
Principal Kent Jones was a short, fat man who wore suspenders to hold his pants around his beer gut. He was completely bald with a big, red nose and rosy cheeks. Carol knew he was an obvious alcoholic who would rarely look at SSS notes. He always left as soon as the bell went to head ‘home to the family’ to have a few drinks and tapas before returning to his wife. The important thing about the SSS notes was that they were there as a paper trail to be submitted in evidence when the game came to an end; and Carol was a meticulous note-taker.   
Caroline was the last to leave that night, being shuffled out of the gates by the groundskeeper Don Alsop.   
“Bit late tonight Caroline? I almost lock ya in for a sleepover.” Don was toothless, but a hard worker. Carol felt as though he had fallen on hard times early in his education, meaning he had to take labour-type jobs to support himself and his family. He was friendly enough, not much of a conversation, but polite and sociable.   
“Sorry Don, too much paperwork tonight, do you think KFC is still open tonight?” Carol rustled around in her handbag to find her car keys.   
“Sure do, doesn’t close till ‘bout ten, why, misses fancying chicken?” He locked the school gates with a class and secured them with a padlock.  
“She sure is, and you know what they say, happy wife, happy life. Best be off now, see you tomorrow?”   
“Aye, give the misses me best. She’s a nice lass, you should bring her in to visit more often.”   
“I’ll be sure to tell her,” Carol forced a smile before entering her car. Carol pulled up to the house shortly before eight, carrying in the fresh chicken dinners “Sorry I’m late honey, fucking paperwork. I got you the Ultimate Burger Box, and then I got us wine, and dessert at that Kmart complex. Don’t worry, I did that first, so your meal should still be hot. Oh, and extra salt on the chips, as usual.” She handed Megan the KFC brown paper bag and a bottle of Pepsi Max.   
“Pepsi Max, really?” Megan raised her eyebrows at Carol.   
“You know as well as I do that Pepsi gives you acne, we’ve done the tests, but if you like to give yourself a pizza face, feel free to swap drinks with me.” Carol offered her bottle and Megan declined.   
“So, tell me about the woodchipper girl, is she serious.”  
“She should have had more tea, but she was too busy cuddling the mug. She said she got the idea off her ex friend, I’m going to pursue that with her later. That’s not even the most interesting part about her, apparently,” she paused for a handful of hot chips “Apparently, she has a 14-week-old, miscarried foetus in the freezer, get this, at her place of work, a stable. Brumby Stables? Ever heard of it?” Carol turned the T.V on, Megan and her loved to watch design programs for inspiration regarding their renovations.   
“Isn’t that the stables near the Scout Centre? The Lea or whatever, Southern Outlet somewhere?”   
“Well, I want to know if the baby actually ever existed, so I want to go there and try and get it. She said its store where the staff stash their ice-creams and frozen meals; also, I want to know if there’s a Clydesdale horse there, of if this is all an elaborate lie. Either way, she’s interesting. I’m still trying to write the script on how the next Octopus is going to unfurl. I’m got ideas, and I’ve got some research, I need to know more about Michael: he seems to be the glue that sticks these two girls together.”   
“Who do you think would be the easiest victim?” Megan took a bite of her fillet-burger.   
“For death?” Megan nodded.   
“Oddly, I think Amy, she seems to have this air of importance, but I don’t think she has her street smarts at the same level that Chelsea does.”   
“But you said Michael was dumb?”   
“But he’d make a great follower. Think about it, he’s muscle, and he’ll take orders. What if I could convince Chelsea to manipulate Michael to help her throw Amy, and the foetus- “  
“If there’s a foetus.”   
“Exactly, but what if, both of those kids, put Amy and the baby in the woodchipper, then, then, Chelsea kills off Michael with her elaborate shower plan?”  
“I was thinking about that at work, the only thing that needs to happen, is for something to cause Michael to slip and crack his head open in such a way that he dies instantly. Literally a happy accident.”   
“I like it.”   
“I do too, but the catch is that we have to do all of this work, and frame the kids, whatever we do we have to leave no trace.”  
“What I need to do, is convince Amy to team up with Chelsea to try and kill Michael with the woodchipper or mincer, whatever we can get our hands onto.” She dipped her chips into the potato-and-gravy.   
“That way Amy things that she’s in control.”   
“But really, Michael is in on the plan, and pushes Amy in instead. Then the kids flee, blah, blah.”   
“So, we drug the kids, we set the scene, you and I struggle with Amy, throw her in, baby or no baby, then, we let the other two wake up with the horror that they’ve murdered their friends.”   
“But what’s the nail in the coffin, the irrefutable evidence that they did it, and not us?” Megan asked contemplatively.   
“We get fake surveillance footage from the butcher. I know a person, dark web shit, they’ll make it believable.”   
“Alright, if you’re sure, it’s not something I want to rush into, keep planning, my little Murder Minx.” Megan leaned over and kissed Carol fondly.   
“Enough planning for tonight. Let’s finish watching The Apartment, I want ideas for the kitchen. If I must put up with this, any longer, I’ll want to mince you.” She said snuggling into the chest of Megan.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:  
Carol was about to begin another boring day of sorting through childhood drama when the Police department rang her mobile. Megan had, had an accident and was being checked out at the hospital. She’d slipped down the internal stairs during a fire evacuation. Carol wasn’t too concerned, Megan had had many injuries resulting from her work. Megan called her for collection after discharge and Carol collected her at the front of the Hospital.   
“What’s the verdict? Carol asked, pulling out of the driveway.   
“Strained my lower back, bruising, the Department was just being over precautious by sending me here.” Megan looked pained and tired, but clearly wasn’t dying.   
“I know, how many days off? I’ll take carers leave so I can wait on you hand and foot.” Carol enjoyed being carer.   
“Three days, and I have some good pain-killers. What I would really like right now is to get into a nice hot bath.”   
“That can be arranged, I think my Lush order arrived, that means you’ll have something special to add to the water.” Carol smiled at her loved as they were stopped at a red light.   
Once home Megan heaved herself into the bathtub, settling gently into the warn water. She selected a vanilla and lavender scented bath-bomb, letting it fizzle around her thighs and toes.   
“Let me help…” Carol took a loofa and began to scrub Megan’s back in soft, circular motions “I’m not hurting you, am I?”  
“No, not in comparison to the to being picked up off a concrete floor, poked and x-rayed at the hospital; this is almost euphoric,” she tilted her head back, leaning slightly into the sponge “Kiss me baby.”   
Carol bent down and kissed Megan lovingly “I’m glad you said almost, I wouldn’t want my love-making to be compared to a warm bath,” Carol chuckled “Look at the state that put you in, I just… You could have died. I mean, had you fallen head first. Who knew stairs were as dangerous as guns and meth labs?”  
“Cheeky brat.” Megan smiled, sinking into the water deeper.   
“It’s a submissive job to be a brat you know. It’s part of my fun.”   
Megan turned quickly, soaking Carols knees. The splashes reminded Carol of the pools of blood from when she sawed off the squatter’s fingers. She enjoyed the warm wet feeling that covered her lap. Megan pulled her gently by the throat straight into the bathtub.  
“Megan, my clothes –”  
“Then take them off,” Megan grabbed at Carol’s work shirt, tugging away at the buttons while Carol removed the rest of her lower half. Megan stared at Carol’s perfect breasts, soft and youthful. They sat naked together in the bath; Megan resting gently against Carol’s chest, Carols arms her firmly. She fingered designs across Megan’s chest erotically.   
“Guess what I’m drawing?”  
“Is this a game?”   
“Sure, close your eyes, I’ll draw something, and you tell me what I’ve drawn.” Carol slowly traced an octopus around one of Megan’s breasts, the tentacles flowing down her stomach.   
Megan smiled “An Octopus, your favourite.” She chuckled.   
“If you weren’t ordered to rest, I’d have you in this bathtub.” Carol whispered softly in Megan’s ear.   
“You’re a tease… even though, here I am, bruised and battered, all you can think about is sex?”   
“I can’t help it that you’re so sexy,” She sighed “What if, I show you the notes I’ve been making on these kids? You have a good soak in the bath, I’ll go lay out everything on the dining table, and I’ll microwave a couple of those lean-cuisines we like?”   
“You never were a cook, were you?”   
“You aren’t engaged with me for my cooking,” Carol licked behind Megan’s ear before exiting the tub “I’ll finish up out there and then we can spend the rest of the night together working on the plan, and then I’ll cook you breakfast in the morning, not from a box sound alright?” Carol walked from the bathroom naked.   
“Sounds almost euphoric.” Megan whispered behind her.   
Megan’s body bore many scars from her service as a Police woman, and formally a Policeman. She’d never told Carol the half of what she went through as she was transitioning, the abuse, the bullying, and the harassment at work. She wasn’t ready to share that part; she wanted only to focus on the positives.   
When Megan was presenting male, she went by the name Magnus. Her Father had named her from Magnus: P.I and was an older Cop himself. Megan’s Mother worked at a bank as a teller, then eventually bank manager. Magnus had always been a Tom Boy: raised with three brothers, he had their hand-me-down clothing, shared their interests, and rough-housed like the best of them. There was a side to Magnus that was far more feminine, he would sew, and he would want to wear pink pyjamas. He would also wear his mother’s makeup, clothes, even lingerie around the house. The parents thought that it was just a little boy playing house, and were fine with this to a point, but; in preparation for High School; they thought “he” would likely find “his” forever love: as they themselves had. To do that, he had to smarten up and be manlier. For years, he had protested for years about having ‘his’ haircut, but his Dad took his clippers one night and shaved it all off to a number 4. Magnus hated it, and became more reclusive, and secretive about his wishes to be born a girl. Often his Mother would catch him praying to ‘wake up a girl’ which would result in the Father taking his belt to Magnus’s backside.   
In the 80’s Megan was just a few years shy of being at teen, but as her male hormones kicked in, she began to progressively know that she was simply born into the wrong body. She kept a secret journal, referring to herself as Megan and Meg, she would convince her friends to call her Meg as “Mag” sounded weird for Magnus. The only pleasant part of still having her male body, was that it was easy to date women. Megan was popular right through until her early twenties, when she confessed to her then-girlfriend Keva that she was considering transitioning from Male to Female. Keva rejected her, and Megan spent many years living alone, doing entry-level jobs to fund her surgeries and new persona. That was until she joined the police-force putting her transition on hold in order to get a footing in her career.   
On May 1997, aged 27, Tasmania legalised homosexuality. It was at that point that Megan found herself comfortable opening up to her colleagues about her transition desires, and, when the formal process begun. Megan often thought about her young lover, born in 1991, that she was only in prep when the legalisation happened. Had it not happened, Megan felt as though they still would have fallen in love, only as man and wife.   
It wouldn’t be until 2018 that she would be happy, have a pretty, young wife-to-be who liked kinky sex and a bloodlust. Megan thought herself a lucky woman. She pulled herself out of the bathtub and examined the bruises made by her heavy landing down the stairwell. They were no worse than a heavy night with Carol, though normally, she wouldn’t have been on the receiving end. She pressed lightly into the large bruise on her upper thigh, taking pleasure in the deep sting it gave. It was becoming a nice purple, with deep black centre. She tried to stretch her back, however; that was an unusual, unpleasant pain. She let out a soft groan as she got dressed into a fresh nighty and dressing gown that Caroline had laid out for her.   
The kitchen and dining areas were still under repair and renovation. The kitchen had been modern during the 1980s when it was built, however; lacked functionality and elegance that was consistent with Caroline’s looks and taste. Everything within the kitchen was brown or yellow. The doors of the cupboards were holding on like a suicidal-drug-addict gripping a bridge. The yellow tiles were like mustard cakes that Grandma would make while experimenting at a bake sale, the worst part, the part that Carol hated the most was the brown prints on the splash-back of fish. Many county kitchens, such as those of Maggie Beer on The Cook and the Chef T.V show, had various prints of animals and food items made into tiles. The difference was that there’s were in blue and white, and not mustard and brown. Carol had started to remove the tiles in a frenzy one night with a crowbar: hacking at the grout until the tiles fell and smashed. A sledgehammer would have worked better, but that was more a job for Megan and her stronger arms. The couple also didn’t have a dining table yet, as when Carol moved in, she’d insisted that the one Megan had, had to go or the relationship was off. Megan had secretly stored it in the abandoned school next-door. The one saving grace of the kitchen was that it still had a functional microwave: the only thing that Carol liked about it.   
“Good timing Detective, dinner is served, and I have an incident room set up in the spare room,” Carol handed her an instant-meal and cutlery before beckoning her toward the spare room. Megan enjoyed it when Carol referred to her as Detective at home, it made her feel important, and dominate.   
For a psychologist, Carol could have been a detective had she taken a different direction, but something told Megan that Carol would hate it if it became her job day-to-day. It was Carol’s favourite hobby along with planning murders. Carol had laid out several documents, notes, and, printed photos of text messages off Chelsea’s phone. In the centre of the room was a large photocopy of both Amy’s and Chelsea’s Octopus sessions. Carol gestured Megan sit down in an armchair she had arranged for the comfort of her injured back.   
“Talk me though what you have.” Megan said as she sat.   
“Well, first, I explored killing Michael in the shower using the complicated method Chelsea thought up, but now what I am thinking is trying to get Michael and Chelsea to murder Amy. With or without the dead foetus in the freezer. I mean, sincerely, I hope there is a frozen baby in a box, because that would just add drama.” Carol sat down on the floor and tucked into her meal.   
“Isn’t it a little obvious?”   
“Is it, talk me through, Officer.”   
“Well, for starters, boy meets girl: that’s Michael and Amy, they fall in lust or love or whatever, perhaps produce a miscarriage we can’t confirm. The obvious people to murder Amy would be Michael to get rid of a scorned ex, or Chelsea for the same thing.”  
“I don’t understand, that’s perfect isn’t it, because they aren’t going to be doing any murdering remember. You and me are, like you promised…” Carol pouted again “Remember, we are looking for obvious connections to frame these kids for the stuff that we want to do with them, it has to be perfect, it has to be bordering on dumb, you idiot, we have to make absolutely sure that everyone on your end, thinks that they did it. We must make the evidence, draw the connections, and basically hand it to the Police in a way that is believable. Plus, I want this to be done in such a way that we can advance your career,” Carol fluttered her eyelids “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be Detective Inspector D’Wyatt?” She tilted her head.   
“Why am I taking your last name, again?” Megan frowned.   
“Because I have a doctorate, and you don’t, which means that I have a heap of paperwork, where as you just have a simple name change. You can take it out on me in any way you want on our wedding night. I promise,” Carol crawled over and kissed her again “So is this a plan that is something that 15, 16 and 17-year-olds could make happen? It could even be something as simple as Amy finding the other two fucking, getting mad, confronting them, we sedate them with those cool dart guns you use for animals at the zoo. We do something like strangle or slit Amy’s throat – “Carol was cut off by Megan.   
“To make this believable, we must leave the two we want to frame to dispose of the body, and we have to make it captured on camera. Where would have cameras that we could alter before the police get it?”   
“The stable? Where Amy works? I don’t think they’re particularly rich; I reckon we could just pay someone on the Dark Net to hack in. They’d have to have cameras to protect the horses surely. Did you know there’s a whole site that is just webcams that you can watch of people doing every-day things in their houses without their knowledge? It’s like that movie 14 Cameras. Anyway, back to topic, I was thinking we lure Chelsea and Michael there to “Meet Amy” they’ll do what they do best by having a bit of sex – “  
“Wait, what if… now just here me out,” Megan sounded excited “What if we just set the scene and see what happens? We lay out everything you could ever need for a murder, you talk up Amy to show Michael the foetus, if there is one it will mean Chelsea will end up dead, because he’ll feel like he need to avenge Amy for the way Chelsea slut shamed her. If there isn’t a baby, Amy ends up dead for lying. We just must set the right thoughts into the heads and watch it happen. That way, we won’t even get our hands dirty.”   
“So, you don’t want us to be the tentacles, just the intrusive thoughts, you don’t want us to carry out any of the murders anymore?” Carol considered for a few moments “But I was really looking forward to mincing a bitchy teenager,” she looked genuinely upset “I’ve put a lot of time in here.”   
“I’ll find you a teenager you can mince.”   
“You will?” Carol’s eyes widened, looking up into her lover’s eyes.   
“I’m sure I can find you a rapist or general asshole that will be better off as sausages than taking up a cell in the prison,” Megan stroked her lover’s hair affectionately “Now my love, I think I need to go and lay down for some sleep.”   
“Is that a euphemism?” Carol asked hopefully.  
“No, not tonight love, my old bones need rest.” Megan went to stand, but Carol slipped her hand up her nighty.   
“I could give your ‘old bone’ a massage, if it needs it?” She tilted her head.   
Megan smiled, helping Carol to her feet “Not tonight my love, raincheck. Let’s get some sleep. You’ve got a big couple of days coming, trying to get all those tentacles planted into three teenage brains.”   
Carol sighed “I’ve got to order new drugs for that, hypnosis is best under drugs I can’t get.”   
“ Write me a sticky note, I’ll see what I can get. A lot of stuff gets handed in as evidence and then never properly disposed of.”   
“LSD? Shrooms? Both could be useful in making a fantasy world when the teenagers don’t even think what they are doing to each other is real?”  
“Bet we have a bunch of old stuff; not sure how fresh it would be or whether the effects would be desired?”  
“… Did I ever tell you that I minored in chemistry during my undergraduate degrees?” Carol posed, which revealed the slight of her bosom.   
“I always knew I loved you for so many reasons. Can you make something to take my back pain away?”   
“Absolutely,” She tossed a pill container into Megan’s lap “Two a day, as required, no less than four hours apart. Hospital orders.” Carol poked her tongue out sassily.   
Both women took themselves to their master suite, Megan was quick to get into bed after puffing up the many pillows for her back. Carol on the other hand, grabbed her iPad and settled into bed cross-legged. Carol checked her email, squinting at the screen in the dimness.   
“Babe, how do you hypnotise someone? Is it all like the “Look into my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my, eyes, don’t look around the eyes,” Megan clicked her fingers “Boom, you’re under! Now quack like a dog every time you hear the word sex…” Megan looked over to Carol who seemed unimpressed “No?”  
“It works better on sedatives stronger than what I can get, but I guess a higher dose of clonazepam would do it. The basic premise is, gain the trust of the patient, don’t break eye contact, then start slowly suggesting feelings they should be feeling. An example would be,” She straddled Megan looking deeply into her eyes and holding both of her hands “Do you trust me?”   
“Of course.”   
“Keep focusing on my eyes, try not to blink too often,” Two or three moments passed of complete silence, as Carol held Megan’s gaze “Don’t you think it’s warm in here?” Carol took one hand away to fan herself.   
Almost instantly, Megan felt as though the temperature of the room had warmed. She continued listening to Carol.  
“You’re safe, it’s just us, and you’re feeling extremely calm, and tired, your back pain is lessening, you’re calm, you’re tired and your back pain is lessening,” Carol spoke in a low slow voice, in a steadily, repetitive monotone. Megan’s body began to feel heavy, and her eyelids began to close. Carol’s voice started to fade away into blackness. Carol smiled, resumed her spot beside Megan and tucked her in gently.   
Carol began her searches into the Dark Net, looking for ways to sabotage cameras to reroute the footage to different displays without being tractable. The Dark Net was easily accessible, particularly on a laptop modified by a police officer. Carol used the browser Tor but to stop herself or Megan being convicted of anything illegal, she’d turned images off. This meant she was only ever seeing text, and that was important. Trove unfortunately was responsible for the large distribution of data, child-pornography and other horrific things. It was also a plethora of information that the general public can’t access. Things like how to hack into people’s webcams, public and private Wi-Fi (protected or not), and, even how to cook human flesh. The Darknet is like all your favourite shopping locations rolled into one location, with all the illegal things your mind could dream of.   
Carol began to think; if the kids were going to kill each other, she wanted front row seats from the safety within an expensive hotel room. Carol wanted to be there to orchestrate the event and watch in close quarters, but Megan was right that it would be too risky, and Carol felt as though things were finally starting to unravel and fall into place with Amy, Chelsea and Michael.   
Hypnosis was a hotly debated topic in terms of the actual effect on patients. Firstly, the subject had to be susceptible to being hypnotised. Hypnotism was in described in a nut-shell as being an intervention in cognitive behaviour. There were types of hypnosis that Carol had been taught, and had explored in her Doctoral degree, such as: regressive therapy which is where a patient is persuaded to bring memories from the past, including child-hood traumas. This type was hotly over-used by television ‘psychologists’ where statements like “Daddy, don’t do it, get away! He’s touching me, then he’s killing Mummy!” were often thrown around just before a heroic Cop solved the major case. Of course, it was the father all along! It’s always a male murderer that gets caught.  
“They get caught, because they get too close, that’s why I have to listen to Megan, we need to create an event, where the pulsating head is the event of murder, and all the eight tentacles link them back towards tiny shrimps of data that points to premeditation; and as far away from Carol and Megan’s involvement as possible. Carol drew a quick scribble of yet another octopus on the notepad she kept on her bedside table. She filled the head with “Murder for Fun” with the “Who” tentacle being filled with a triangle map linking Amy, Chelsea and Michael. It wasn’t guaranteed who would die, but at least one survivor was likely: Unless they ended the fun early by committing suicide, that would be boring.   
Carol started to fill out the tentacle for ‘how’: the third in the sequence.


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four:  
Amy owned three dogs: two corgis and a chihuahua. Her family owned a property that backed onto the stables where Amy worked on weekends. Carol’s guess that they used the stable as a cover to hide the fact they have a third, unregistered dog. Carol could see all three dogs scamper in-and-out of the doggie-door from her position by the gate. It was 4am, the only light within the house was coming from a small night-light that the dog’s used to see their way into the yard.   
Carol guessed that all three dogs were stupid, as none of them have noticed her. She’d been standing there for over ten-minutes. Both Carol and Chelsea wore the same size shoe, and for this adventure, Carol had purchased an identical pair of faux-leather, cheap boots from Kmart. She had also collected some hairs that fell onto the floor, as well cigarette butt from their last appointment, keeping them in an evidence bag within her file. Carol didn’t see animals as people, unlike some. Her family never had pets, and she’d never understood how anyone could get attached to an animal like a they do a human.   
Originally Carol had planned to hurt the Clydesdale, but it was too early in the octopus to delve too deeply into any of the three teenagers’ lives. The dogs were an easier target; and Carol was intending on weaving a tentacle of hatred and revenge. She doubted the dogs would be smart enough not eat the bait she would place: ice-cubes with chunks of meat dipped in bleach. She chose simple things any teenager would have available either at school or at home, and lunch ham and bleach would be enough to give the dogs a very nasty, upset belly, that might require a vet-visit, but not enough to kill them. Carol wasn’t about murdering innocent animals, but she also wasn’t about excluding them from harm.   
Carol carefully placed the ice around the yard. Some of the ice-cubes she had set one or two of Chelsea’s hairs. A slip up any teenager would have made. After spreading enough around, she carefully left a shoeprint in the mud by the gate. After closing the gate, Carol dropped one of the hairiest ice-cube by the gate, as if ‘by accident’ by a ‘blundered poisoning attempt’ before walking carefully away from the property. She’d hidden her car on an off road and wasn’t concerned about anyone being awake. She drove herself away quietly.  
With a couple hours left until the dogs would be inevitably be found, Carol returned home. She stripped and put her entire set of clothes and shoes into the washing-machine. She showered, scrubbing all possible evidence from her body. Megan lent on the doorframe heavily, still dressed in pyjamas.   
“Did you do it?” She asked curiously, as Carol turned off the water.   
“Yep, you’ll probably get the report when you get to work, which, by the way, you should be dressed already.”  
“I wanted to have breakfast with you. We have toaster waffles.”   
Carol considered “I’ll be out in a minute, you get dressed too, we’ll eat in the car, I’ll drop you at work, and then I’ll get to school.”  
Megan nodded. It was her first day back after her back incident. She returned to the bedroom and slowly dressed for work, seeking Carol’s assistance with the buttons on her blazer.   
Caroline D’Wyatt was born in 1990. A normal kid with a morbid, obsessive nature. Her parents pulled her around psychologists, psychiatrists, paediatricians in order to find our why their daughter was more Wednesday Addams than she was Madeline; even if she had Madeline’s quintessential red-hair. There was nothing wrong with little Carol, who pulled her dolls apart, cut their legs off, and made Frankenstein’s Monster-like toys out of the bits; She just didn’t fit with the perfect, middle class, dream that her family wanted. They wanted a Madeline, but they got a lesbian. Her parents were open-minded, but the type that insisted she was going through a ‘phase’.   
Carol knew she was a lesbian since second-grade. She liked the way that her childhood friends looked in their bathers during learn-to-swim. She liked the way that they had their hair in plats with Alice-bands and big scrunchies. During playtimes she was always pretended to be the male in the girl-friend-group. She once got into trouble with her best-friend’s mother, Janice, for building a pillow fort with her daughter, Ruby, for them to pretend they were in a cave mating as lions.   
Carol’s first love was Ruby. Not that Ruby ever knew of course, she was very heterosexual. Ruby was pretty, mousy-brown-haired girl, whose Mum cut her hair right up until she was sixteen. A heavy-set girl, she’d hit puberty early; giving her huge breasts by the time they were in the seventh-grade. Carol was flat chested until almost tenth-grade. Ruby was popular with the boys and dreamed of being a burlesque artist like Dita Von Tease. There were many afternoons where Ruby would practice her routines with Carol while Ruby’s parents worked hard in their family-owned business in their downstairs office. Together they would create whole scripts and characters, watched the movies Moulin Rouge and Chicago for costume ideas and use an ancient sewing machine to piece together ‘glitzy’ costumes from anything they could find.   
Ruby’s house was much bigger than Carol’s and her family had a lot more money. Carol never envied that about Ruby, because she got the best-friend benefits of family holidays and camping trips. Carol was pretty sure that Ruby knew she was gay early on, and as they became older, they drifted apart. Now they barely talk, and Ruby doesn’t recognize Carol on the street. Carol sometimes wonders about their giant Alsatian Dog Rex, he was so big that when the two girls were smaller, they could ride his bag like a magical horse. Dead now, but Carol always hoped he’d had a great life. Ruby did go on to become a local burlesque artist and pole-dance-teacher while Carol went on to be an academic.   
Carol’s morbid curiosity, academic precision, combined with obsessive tendencies had always been useful when planning murderous adventures. Tentacle three had always been Carol’s favourite. The laundry list of things to do kept out the drum of the daily grind at the Sunflower Cove.   
Carol parked in her usual spot, the school used a derelict Church’s car park as extra staff-parking. It was only temporary until a new one was built on the extra land behind the computer block. This car park was in perfect view of the sheltered skate-park the school built as part of a community outreach program. It was 7:25am, Carol always liked to get in early to prepare for her clients, the questions they’ll likely ask and the advice she would give. This morning in the middle of April was cold for Autumn. The older boys were already about, smoking and turning tricks on the half-pipes with their skateboards. A horde of girls were watching them ‘perform’ calling out scores and compliments. Its surprised Carol to see that Michael  
was absent from the group, he was usually centre stage. Carol noted the absence on a sticky note, she’d scheduled an appointment with him in first period to get him out of art class; wanting to start out on a favoured footing. It would be easier to get into his head then, he hated art. Carol’s guess was that half his head was full of lard, so what would he know about the elements of design?   
Both Amy and Chelsea were present. Another observation that Carol noted. Only Chelsea attended these morning, chain-smoking-parties on account of being Michael’s new bae. She seemed just as confused as Carol as to why Michael wasn’t there. Chelsea glanced over at Amy with a stare that could split open her throat. They noticed each other, waiting on opposite ends of the Skate park. Carol leaned over and turned on her dash-cam once more, recording the group out of curiosity. She sensed a vinegar in the air, something she’d learned to associate with fights.   
The group around Chelsea all began whispering, but Amy was the first one to attack, running full-speed towards Chelsea, there was something in her hand, parallel to her. Carol sensed it would be a knife, or something from her stable. As fun as it would be to watch the slaughter unfold, Carol found herself doing the responsible thing.   
“Alright everyone STOP!” Carol said in a booming voice. The whole group was frozen “Amy, give me the weapon, take my keys and go unlock my office, wait there for me. Do you understand, do you understand, or will I have to call the Police?” Carol spoke, getting ever gradually quieter, so the group would have to listen.   
Amy stood still, panting “Amy, it’s Dr. D’Wyatt, I can help you, just give me what is in your hand.” Carol stepped forward, extending her hand and received a small razor-blade taped onto a popsicle-stick. A crude, prison-like shank “Alright, now take my keys,” Carol replaced the shank with a lanyard “It’s the green key. Go to my office now.” Amy started running, straight where Carol had asked.   
Carol was relieved when the Principal of the school arrived and intervened Kent Jones, although the definition of lethargy and glutton, was far better at crowd control that Carol was. Carol left the fat-bellied-Principal waving his fat fingers at the small mob of high-school students while she made a stealthy walk to her office. Inside Amy was kicking, and, hitting her head on the wall. Carol took her softly by the shoulders and pushed her into the tired chairs.   
“What just fucking happened, talk to me Amy, are you on something? Some drug? You nearly stabbed a girl in the playground, that’s the deep end Amy, we haven’t even discussed half the steps in between that! Fucking… let me brew some tea.” Carol made the tea, angrily.   
“You’re real fucking cool D’Wyatt.” Amy said though sobs.   
“And you’re a real fucking idiot. Drink this, it’ll make you feel better, now let me see if you’ve done more damage to the wall or your fucking head,” Carol knelt before Amy, fussing over her head “A word of advice, don’t hit your head when you’re angry, it makes you look insane. People like me put insane people in little green rooms. Now, sip some tea, you’ll feel better. Sugar is on the table. I’m going to sit down and take notes. You know that type of shit, and, I’m going to convince pork-chop-Jones that you didn’t have anything dangerous in your hands, just a pencil. You’re lucky you picked Chelsea, doubt her parents will be up your ass as much as some of the others in this place,” Carol presented Amy with a mug of hot tea, two sugars, then poured herself one with lemon “Now, talk, I have a 9am, you have like an hour.”  
“Chelsea poisoned my fucking dogs.”   
Carol tried not to grin “And how do you know this?” She took some notes to try and look busy.   
“She fucking told me she would, told me in a text, said she’d kill me and my dogs, so when I woke up this morning to find my dogs shitting everywhere and clearly very sick, I immediately thought about our stupid fights over text.” She got comfortable in Carol’s chair, sipping at the tea.   
“Did your parents call the cops?” Amy nodded.   
“Yeah, and they’re there now, I hope they find something to pin it on the bitch.”   
“And if they do?” Carol met Amy’s eyes “She’ll only get a minor misdemeanour. Probably a fine, really, you’re punishing the parents in that case, Chelsea isn’t rich.”   
“How do you know so much about this?” Amy asked with genuine curiosity.   
“My fiancée is a cop; detective, she might be at the case, if there’s nothing else on. Can’t say animal poisonings rate highly on the police radar, but if you still had the text messages, you might get an animal cruelty conviction. At best.”  
“That’ll fucking teach her.”   
“You’re right it’s a crime. She deserves to be punished.” Carol watched as her sedatives started to kick in, Amy’s eyes rolled back slightly, she was a lot calmer almost instantly.   
“I feel better already…” Carol took the cup away from her.   
“How would you punish her? If it was up to you, if the law wasn’t a thing, talk to me.”  
“I don’t know, I’d quite like to shit her house up, see how she likes it.” Amy yawned. Carol smirked but heard rapidly approaching feat walking toward her office. She stood by the door, waiting for the principal, and what seemed like a football-team’s worth of people. Carol slammed the door on most, allowing just Fat Kent Jones, Amy’s father, and a policewoman named Eboni Tyson from Megan’s unit.   
“Now young lady, you threatened someone in MY PLAYGROUND!” Kent’s fat head was nearly exploding with rage.   
“No now, Mr. Jones, you need to calm down, I will not have a distressed student in my office harassed. You’re the adult in the situation, act like it,” Carol took a defensive pose “I was there too, I can tell you, it was just a pencil. I have it here for evidence. There’s been an upset, Chelsea Smith has made threats toward Amy’s dogs, and I understand from talking to Amy, that her dogs have been poisoned this morning. Amy is not mentally fit to be questioned by anyone now, it’s my suggestion that Mr. Legion takes her home, she rests, she reunites with you and her mother, speaks with Police about everything they need to know, and at least the rest of the week off.” Carol spoke with an air of professionalism, which contrasted with Kent’s volcanic demeanour.   
Mr. Legion nodded with agreement “Please, call me Eric, and actually, we had no idea about the threats that Amy had been getting about the dogs, we are usually pretty diligent on text messages and stuff, because she’s been bullied before. There wasn’t anything odd in her phone bill to suggest she and Chelsea had even been texting.” Everyone looked at Amy.   
“That’s because we just use Snapchat. It’s gone in like twenty-seconds.” Amy replied with a yawn.  
“Is there any way to get messages back from a Snapchat conversation after that time?” Carol asked curiously.  
“Not that I know of, I mean, I’ve screen-grabbed the last lot of threats, but there’s been more.”   
“Hm, maybe it’s worth mentioning to the police in the interviews then.” Carol directed this information to Eric.   
Eric nodded again, letting out a deep sigh "Let’s go home baby-girl, the dogs will be home tomorrow, and we are staying in a hotel overnight with a nice pool and spa, and the police said we will be home tomorrow after they’ve gathered all the evidence. Thank you, Dr. D’Wyatt, for looking out for her today.” He reached over and gave Carol a friendly handshake.   
“Here’s my number, if she or you, or anyone in the family needs someone to chat with while this process sorts itself out, call me, night or day,” Carol took a small business card from a narwhale shaped pencil holder on her desk, handing it to Eric Legion “Let this officer escort you to your car, it will keep away what I imagine is quite the crowd outside.” Eric nodded, helping Amy to her feet. Slowly the trio walked away quietly.   
Kent Jones glared at Carol “You’ll have a lot of explaining to do, this afternoon, Car-o-line.” Carol hated it when he enunciated the syllables in her name. It wasn’t sexy, and it made her want to hit him over the head with a book.   
“Actually sir, you’ll find I did the right thing. I also have my car dash cam to prove it. I also removed the most volatile of students from the situation. I am also a victim and will be claiming some workers compensation for what I witnessed and had to break up. I’ll fill my claims out and send them to admin.”  
“You’re a fucking psychologist, how can you take mental health leave, can’t your self-talk or sooth, or call a hotline?” Kent hit a closed fist on the top of her armchair.   
“I suggest you stop talking, I’m going to take the dash cam footage to the police station, after which, I’ll be taking some leave. After I take my mugs away, and, lock my office,” Carol picked up her china, before gesturing for Jones to leave her office. She was a foreboding figure when she wanted to be “Or shall I call human resources to put in a complaint about the way I have been treated, then my union, and make things… interesting for you, Kent Jones. My wife-to-be is also a policewoman. Let’s not forget that.”   
“You’ makin’ threats to me?!” a small amount of angry snot dripped from Jones’s nose; matching the glisten on his bald head.   
“Goodbye Mr. Jones, I shall see you Monday. Please leave my office, or I’ll call for that police woman again. I’m going to count down from 5,” She spoke softly without breaking eye-contact “4…3.”  
“Entitled lesbian, educated bitch. This isn’t the end.” Jones’s pivoted on his heel and excited before Carol was forced to say one. Carol rolled her eyes.   
Once in the car, Carol called Megan.   
“Babe, I heard about the school incident, are you ok?” Megan asked with genuine concern.   
“Sure, I knew it would happen, so I’m swell, I’m taking some workers compensation time off for it though. It went so well that I need time to plan the next steps.” Carol said through grinning teeth.   
“I overheard Tyson saying something about your dash cam? She’s working the case, with uniform, not important enough to throw my way yet.”   
“Good, keep it that way for now, you want it when it gets too hard for them, so you can take all the credit. Then they’ll see how good you’d be as Detective: Chief Inspector. I am on my way to give you lot my dash cam though. Don’t worry, I made sure that nothing but today’s trip from home was recorded. There’s also no sound on this type of device. They won’t find anything they aren’t supposed to.” Carol added confidently.   
“Good. They shouldn’t be looking for anything other than what they need on the fight anyway. I will keep an ear out, but as you’re attached to me, they’ll likely keep me out of it for fear of me being biased or something. Do you want me to come home and look after you?” Megan asked hopefully.   
“No, actually, I have something I want to research. Have you heard about phone spoofing?” Megan could hear the indicators in the background of Carol’s call.   
“Yeah, it’s when scammers usually hijack a number and use it for threatening, or for gaining money, we dealt with a small number of victim cases last year in Hobart, why?”   
“Well, wouldn’t it be handy if we could spoof Amy, Michael and Chelsea’s phones if needed?” Carol tried hard not to sound condescending.  
“Brat… I’ll see what I can dig up in the files from those cases and let you know, might be some notes somewhere in the new police training about how it’s done. Either way, I’ll see if we can get away with it. Now, I’ve got to get off the phone…”  
“Meg, babe before you go, there’s another thing…”   
“Spit it out then, tits.”   
“Do you know anything about Snapchat? Apparently, that’s what the kids have been using to communicate and fight on. Messages are gone after they have been opened. Unless you screen-grab them. I’m not a big app user, maybe there’s an immature, or intern-like person you could ask about that too?”  
“I’ll ask around. I’m going to make dinner tonight, I’ll be home at 8.” Megan sounded annoyed.   
“Love you?”  
“You also.” Megan hung-up, flatly.   
Hours rolled by as Carol began researching Snapchat and spoofing, when out of nowhere, Megan called at half-past-seven.   
“You know how you were looking for a pig?” She asked gleefully.  
“Yes?”  
“Meet me at the school around eight. I have you a pig for slaughter. We will take a raincheck on dinner.   
“Does that mean I finally get try out being the dominate?” Carol sounded overwhelmingly excited.   
“It does, now get your shit together, and don’t fuck it up or this will be your only chance.”   
Below the Raymont school was a storage area; formally used as dry storage and a freezer for the canteen. It was deep below surface level, and almost no sound could escape from within. Megan had delivered on her promise, a useless body to mince and a chance for Caroline to be the dominate in the scene; arriving at 8pm with a nobody in the back of her car. She turned off her lights and pulled from view of the roads. She hadn’t arrived in her police car like Caroline had expected.   
“Why are you using our car?” Caroline asked quietly, as she lent on the doorframe.  
“GPS locators darling, they’re in all of our cars now. Although we live next door, there’s no reason for the car to stop here for an extended period. So, I switched cars at our place.”   
“What have you got for me?” Caroline could barely have contained her excitement.   
“Rapist, he has a warrant, I found him by chance on my way home. Picked him up, and now here we are.”   
“Did you give him the drug?”   
“I roofied him, yeah, he’ll do what you or I tell him to do. He won’t be able to help himself”  
“Probably the same thing he did to his victims, and you’re sure he’s blindfolded?”   
The nobody was a twenty-year-old suspected rapist, his name was Timothy Rain. He liked to hang around Caroline’s work and flash the kids in a general sex-pest fashion. He was up for the rape of a nine-year-old-girl. He was a perfect candidate for Caroline’s murder-fantasy.   
“Yes, he’s blindfolded.”  
“Alright, bring him out and strip him, completely naked, bind his hands, we are going to take him for a walk,” Megan heaved the man from the backseat. He was morbidly obese, sweating from his neck and pits like a burst dam. Carol looked him over with disgust as Megan stripped him down, binding his hands with chains from the boot. Carol looked down at his shrivelled penis “He won’t be needing that anymore. I reckon we should dock it off like a lamb’s tail, with a rubber band? Or should I just cut it off right here, and shove it down his throat?”   
“I like the rubber idea. Let me put on my gloves. You should suit up too.”   
Caroline nodded, and both women put on thick, plastic, hazmat-type suits, visors, and two pairs of gloves. Caroline bended down and wrapped a singular rubber-band around The Nobody’s ball-sack and shaft. He groaned in drugged pain. Caroline stretched and repeated the step three more times, until his penis was almost purple and slightly erect with pressure.   
The women dragged The Nobody across the floor and down to the dry storage. The walls were a cream paint, possibly lead-based due to the age of the building. Caroline sealed the door, she was the only one that knew how to get out now. They were locked into this plan.   
“Tell me what to do, mistress.” Megan said, as she took the submissive role for the night.   
“I want you to make the pig walk around, I want you to hit him with the chains, he’s not allowed to stop. We aren’t going to take his blindfold off until I’m ready to prepare his meat.”   
“Are you making us dinner, mistress?”   
“You’re not allowed to ask those questions, hit yourself with the chain.” Megan followed instructions, taking twisted pleasure from the pain.   
“Alright pig, lets walk,” she tied a rope around his neck and started dragging him in circles like a show-pony “That’s a good pig, walk, walk, walk.”   
It’s well known within the realm of cooks and chefs, that the more a muscle moves, the move flavour it provides in the cooking process. Timothy walked with pained groans, following instructions exactly. Carol meanwhile was preparing her meat grinder. She’d bought from a friend after she convinced her that Megan wanted to take up making gourmet sausages as a hobby. The friend, Lynette, had asked for a sample in repayment for half of the machine’s cost. It was an older model, but it was available right away, which was all that Carol really cared about. She started dicing onions, garlic, as well as mixed herbs and a small chili in preparation for flavouring the final product. She also had a selection of other minced meats: pig, and lamb.   
“Alright, time to stop,” Carol pulled out a cleaver “Lynette said that it was easiest to start with a smaller cut of meat, and to avoid the bones before I’m confident. Hmmm. There’s a lot of fat here,” She stuck a small knife into Timothy’s stomach, he yelled, Megan shoved his rolled-up shirt into his mouth. “We need some of that.” Carol took the same knife, sliding it deep across his abdomen watching as the yellow fat started to show behind his muscles. She took a bowl to catch it in.   
Timothy tried to fall to his knees, but Megan made him stand on his feet firmly “They say that the calf muscles of a human are more for slow cooking, my lady.” Megan said quietly.   
“Would you recommend perhaps something from the back?” Carol gestured for Tim to be turned.   
“Yes, around here, this is a good cut.” Megan traced a portion of his back with her fingers.   
“I’ll take some of that then!” Carol sunk her cleaver into his back roughly, before butchering a large section of his back and shoulders. She used the same bowl to catch it “Alright, back to pasture, keep it walking, let’s take of his blindfold so he can see what we are doing?” Megan slid down Timothy’s blindfold, revealing the horrific scene. Timothy’s eyes widened, as he looked at his gut and penis with anxiety. He was dying, slowly, and the women were sure it was just starting to sink in.   
Carol took the meat to the grinder, feeding it in a piece at a time while turning the crank. A fresh bowl waited with the worm-like sections of meat to flow freely. Carol worked through the cuts at rapid speed. She sunk her fingers in the bowl of what she prepared, before walking it over to Megan for evaluation “I think it needs more fat?”   
“Let me feel?” Megan examined the mince between her fingers “It is a little grainy, perhaps more of this nice fatty belly will make it more balanced?”   
“Pass me a handful then?” Carol tilted her head, watching as Megan took her gloved hand a ripped more flesh from Timothy’s gut. Timothy desperately tried to scream but he couldn’t. Megan prized a large handful of fatty tissue from him, throwing it squarely into the bowl on the table behind Carol. Carol grinned, slipping her hand down the inside of Megan’s thigh lightly “Good girl, you’ll be rewarded for that later.” It was a faint touch felt through the layers of suit.   
Carol returned to her preparations, grinding the extra fat into the mixture. The next step was setting up the sausage maker; a 1980’s contraption that had been abandoned along with the school. Carol bought pig casing for this place, as she didn’t have time to clean out a foul human’s intestines. With ease, Carol mixed her prepared flavours and extra mince in with her batch of Timothy.   
“Have you got enough of his meat, my love?” Megan called from behind her.   
“Yes, you can kill him now, any way you like, just do it outside, I don’t want to hear it. Make sure you get rid of the body.”   
“Oh, I’m not going to kill him, I’m going to lock him in cold storage until he dies. He deserves it for what he’s done. Then when he’s frozen, I’ll get rid of him.” Megan marched the man into the freezer before abandoning him. They could hear his screams from their room, but they soon fell into almost silent sobs.   
Carol and Megan made forty, thick sausages with his meat, linking them into groups for four. The wrapped up a few packets for themselves, family and friends before adding them to an Eski they’d kept outside away from the mess.   
“Do you think we should boil them, smoke, steam, or just fry them?” Carol asked Megan curiously.   
“We have enough to try it all. I think just fried in butter.”   
“How long do you think it’ll take him to die?” Carol looked toward the freezer.   
“Few days to a week, probably, why do you ask?”  
“Wondering if we should get a bit more meat, do some tests. It’s been a long time since I’ve cooked a rapist.”   
“Are you asking my opinion on how to be a better dominatrix, my hell-bunny?” Megan approached Carol, cupping her face and turning it roughly toward her, forcing her thumb in between Carol’s lips.  
“You’re better at it than me…” Carol said breathlessly “Why don’t you tie me to a chair and let me watch your work, I’m a visual learner.”   
“Don’t you start making promises… you know I’ll follow through,” Megan pushed her towards a wall, Carol fought back in a playful struggle, Megan dragged her by her arm across the floor towards an old, fold-out school chair. She lifted Carol’s frame onto the chair before wrapping the chains around Carol.   
“Tighter…” Carol said breathlessly.  
Megan smirk before locking her into place “Watch and learn, pussy. Don’t close your eyes. Take mental notes, this won’t be a performance we can repeat.” Megan lumbered toward the freezer, unlocking it in a fluid motion “Hi Timothy, ready for round two? It’s no fun when the little girls fight back now is it,”   
Quivering in the back of the freezer was the remainder of Timothy Rain the rapist. Megan dragged him out by the skin flaps on his back, pulling free his gag. Timothy’s screams sounded like a tortured rodent.   
“Oh, baby we are just getting started,” Megan kissed his shoulder before biting through the full layers of his skin, pulling the chunk away with her teeth. Timothy roared in agony “What was it like, slipping that shrivelled dick into an innocent, was it worth all this. You could have just stayed a sex-pest and a flasher but no, you had to take, take, take. Well now, I’m going to make your last night: a hellish retribution,” Megan pushed him against the wall face first, breaking his nose and cheek bones “All you’re allowed to say is ‘Oink, oink, oink’ you fat, fucking pig. If you say anything else, I’ll take off a finger or two.”   
“You fucking bitches, you get off on this shit, don’t you?! I’ll fucking put my dick in you both after this, you’ll fucking…” Timothy yelled, his thick lips covered in his own blood.   
“I said, all you’re allowed to say, is oink, OINK, OINK,” Megan dragged him toward the meat grinder, shoving his whole hand into the funnel, slowly she started turning the crank.   
The loud sound of bones grinding, and flesh being decimated aroused Carol in her chair, she watched her lover breathlessly. Timothy yelled.  
“Say it, oink, oink, oink, and I’ll stop,” Whispered Megan into Timothy’s ear, as she slowed the crank slightly “You might save your wrist.”   
“Am I going to die?” Timothy was trembling and pale from the shock.  
“You’re a slow fucking learner.” Megan stood up, putting her whole boot onto Timothy’s arm, pushing him deeper into the grinder, Megan grunted as she cranked the arm through its thicker and thicker flesh. Soon Timothy’s shoulder was flush with the funnel.   
“Is this fucking real, is that my hand, fuck, shit, what the fuck, I can’t feel my hand.”   
“Oh, you’re a real fucking dumb-dumb, I’m surprised you know what your pee-pee even does.” Megan reached down to the catchment pan, pulling some of the raw minced arm up for Timothy’s viewing. Among the clump of meet was part of a fingernail and Megan let it drop straight into his lap. Timothy began screaming like a child thrown from a Merry-go-round.   
“Holy shit that’s my arm isn’t it…?” Timothy asked in almost a whisper “I’m gonna fucking kill you, slut.” He spat in Megan’s face.  
“Don’t let him treat you like that! Make that boy pay, baby.” Carol called from the corner.   
“Why are you not playing the game Timothy, all you have to do is act like the pig you are,” Megan yanked his arm free, throwing him to the ground before picking up the cleaver and a length of chains. She slowly backed him into the corner before throwing the chains around his neck and dragging him toward the table. Taking the chain, she secured his remaining arm to the table leg. Timothy started kicking, but she soon stood with her whole weight on one of his legs, cracking his ankle “This little piggy went to market,” She started to sing, severing one of his toes with the knife “This little piggy stayed home,” She chopped the second two off “This little piggy ate roast beef, the next, he had none” She decided to tread on the third and fourth toe, flattening them with the weight of her body and steel-toed boots.   
“Stop, STOP, OINK, OINK, I GIVE UP!” Timothy sobbed for mercy, but Megan just smirked down at his pathetic body that spewed across the floor.  
“Too late little Timmy, you know what comes next don’t you? And this little pig went: WEE, WEE, WEE, WEE, WEE, WEE, WEE, WEE,” Megan started frantically chopping all the way up his leg, standing on the cleaver when needed to sever the flabby flesh and thickest bones until she met his hip joint. “All. The way…Home!” She took a final slice across Timothy’s throat, listening to the gurgle and death-rattle follow. She hacked her way all the way through, rolling Timothy’s head across the room.  
Timothy’s head rolled short of Carol’s legs, but near enough for her to make a swift kick into his eyeball. Megan panted, taking a small knife off the table, she made a “Y” shaped incision in his torso.   
“What are you doing?” Carol asked curiously “That was amazing…”  
“You ever had haggis? The heart and lungs are needed, and blood pudding? 4 cups of his blood, don’t worry, I’ll make sure we have enough ingredients. You on the other hand, you’re gonna clean up. As punishment for not following through, brat.” Megan finished collecting samples of Timothy’s corpse before unchaining Carol.  
“Isn’t there another way I could make it up to you?” Carol asked, tilting her head and looking toward Megan’s crotch.   
“No, get on your knees, and scrub, there’s cleaning stuff in the car, if you do enough, I’ll try not to bruise you tonight."  
Caroline groaned “I hate this part.”


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five:  
Carol, having taken the week off on “stress leave” found herself in an interesting position of having time on her hands and an empty house. It had taken many hours to clean up the mess Timothy’s body had left behind. On top of scrubbing her knees and fingertips to shreds even through the protective wear, Megan hadn’t figured out how they were going to get rid of the rest of the body.   
Carol found herself in front of the frozen storage unit, admiring corpse that limply dangled from a shelving unit. Megan had sat the head on a broom pole for artistic measure. Carol wrapped her cardigan around herself tightly, taking a few long strides towards the head. There was frost developing on his eyelashes while the area around where the head had been detached was becoming icy and purple. Carol turned towards what remained of the body.  
“It was quite the frenzied attack, wasn’t it?” She asked her question to the head “I wish I had been better prepared. You were a wasted opportunity, but not a wasted death. Now what am I going to do with you? You can’t stay in here, it’s far too obvious to someone like-minded, in fact, I’m surprised random bodies hadn’t turned up before now.” Carol let out a sigh before exiting, firmly padlocking the door closed before wiping it clean, just-in-case. Carol took herself back to the house, it was still early, her distant neighbours’ lights weren’t yet on. Megan had already left for work hours before, having only been asleep for maybe 3 hours.  
Carol turned the kettle on as she walked through the kitchen, a habit of hers she’d acquired from her mother. She quickly rushed upstairs and into the shower; running the tap water as hot as she could without suffering from burns. She undressed before admiring the bruises on her hands and knees from the night’s work. Then there were the large welts on her ass from Megan’s ‘punishment’ that accompanied a bite mark and fingerprint-sized bruises on her upper, inner right thigh. Carol traced the bitemark; it was deeper than she’d first thought and the area around it was red and angry. She lingered in the shower for some time thinking about the crazy dreams she’d had in what little sleep she’d managed. She’d dreamt that her office at work was slowly filling with ink and blood and she’d been seated in her usual chair. Across from her was the arms of Timothy; mid-air and sipping from an oversized mug. His arm had begun to slowly sloth away, as if being minced by an invisible grinder. The cup stayed floating when slowly a tentacle began to grow and extend toward the floor and splashed silently into the ink and blood. As if it had been made into some sort of creature, the cup and saucer swam through the door and down the hallway. Carol had followed it into the locker area, where three corpses hung from beneath an almighty, giant, fluorescent yellow and pulsating octopus. One body was completely black, and Carol didn’t recognise the person’s figure at all. The second body was that of Chelsea Smith, hanging by the neck but perfectly peaceful. What startled Carol the most is that third body was Megan, who was twisted tightly within the snake-like tentacles, so much so that her head had begun to pressurise and bulge outwardly. Carol had awoken with a start and spent the rest of the morning being spooned by Megan for comfort.   
Carol exited the shower, feeling clean but not refreshed; she’d decided to return to bed for a few extra hours. Sleep, however; didn’t come, but swirled around like a foggy sinus-pain. It was at that point she turned to her favourite tea. This time, she took it with sugar, and slowly descended into her inky sedation. This state was peaceful, but not sleep. It allowed Carol to clear her mind and envision what she would have to do to dispose of Timothy’s mutilated corpse.   
Carol laid on their bed, clammy and naked. Sweat beaded from her forehead as she felt as though she was in a bubble, deep under the surface of the ocean. She looked up toward the surface, and by some trick of the mind she was then above the beaches of Kingston and Blackmans Bay. The perfect birds-eye-view showed from the Kingston Sea Scout shed at the mouth of Browns River, all the way left until the derelict boat shed at the southern end of Blackmans Bay. Carol felt unable to inhale fully, a sensation like drowning or being smothered, but she managed to stay lucid in her dream by drawing shallow breaths in time with the tidal roll. Carol found herself watching a large, dark shape under the surface that seemingly exited Browns River. The large shape followed the currents down the Derwent River, until it slowed into Blackmans Bay. Slowly, the shape began to take the form of Timothy’s torso, floating below Carol. The torso began bleeding a vivid, velvet like trail of blood into the water before slowly floating more and more south until out of view. The blood trail was all that was left, a perfect trace of the tidal patterns. Carol now knew where they could dump the body, and, it would be carried all the way out toward Antarctica. All she had to do now was wait for the right night to ensure smooth sailing.   
Carol spent four hours in a state between high, and sedated, spending the time flitting between thoughts. She was not aware of how long she’d spent on each, but she was processing information like a bullet-train. The problem with an octopus thought is that it takes a trained mind to remember what you’d been thinking. It was a perfect state in which to put people in to gain information, it was also a perfect state to work through problems. Its only issue was being lucid enough to write it all down when you come to. Carol had learned to keep a pen and paper sitting nearby, and for some time she had trained herself to write notes while under the influence. As her practice progressed, she’d ended up with mostly coherent notes and sketches.   
When the drugs wore off, Carol picked up her notebook; on it was a complete sketch of the most lucid of her dreams: the torso progressing to Antarctica via a current. There were also small notes about ‘Facebook stalking’, ‘burner phone’ and ‘phone spoofing’ where she’d sketched out ideas for a teenage identity, she could pretend to be in order to lure possible victims. Carol sat up slowly, her head felt like a log of wood being hit with an axe. She was used to the pain, a constant sufferer of migraines, this was nothing she hadn’t felt before. Carol reached into the bedside drawer and popped two paracetamols and two ibuprofens into her hand, taking them without water or tea in one, uncomfortable swallow. She dragged her body to the kitchen and drank her juice from the carton; it was a habit she’d never grown out of, but now she was kind enough to label her drink so that no one mistakenly drank it. She grabbed her phone off charge and texted Megan “Solved our freezer problem xxx,” she wrote.  
A minute or so later, her phone pinged “Great, tell me how when I get home, love you baby, I’ll get one of those hot chooks from Coles, anything else you need?”   
“Aspirin? Or anything stronger, more juice,” She examined the fridge before finishing her text “We need milk, bread, sugar, oh and I think I’m getting my period, can you get some of the pads I like?”   
“Sure thing, I leave work around 5ish, if there’s anything more you find during the day, text me before then because I’ll go there straight on my way home OK?”   
“Ok <3, I love you.”   
“I love you too, get some sleep for me xox!” Megan sent her an emoji of a sleeping Corgi.   
Carol smiled and took herself into her home-office, she booted up her laptop and sat staring out the window at the derelict school while it loaded. Looking at her notes, she’d liked the idea of stalking the kids online, but the problem is that fake accounts were already a prolific problem. Google had even invented a backwards image search for people to check if the photos appeared anywhere else on the net. Carol would need photos of a teenager in order to pass off as the true account holder. She slumped in her desk chair, slowly spinning around the room. An old year-book of Megan’s caught her attention. Carol was sure she could pull a few photos from it without anyone knowing. She took it down from the shelf and began fingering through it, as she found potential people, she searched them for profiles that already existed on Facebook. It took a few attempts, but finally, a name and identity seemed to be vacant: a girl by the name of Petra Ghrisham, a girl from a few grades below Megan’s. Carol carefully photographed the sections of the yearbook and imported them to her boot-leg version of photoshop. With a few tweaks, she’d changed the background, the colour of the girl’s eyes, and made the photos look as if they were put through an Instagram filter rather than just being from a long-forgotten-yearbook.   
Carol needed a new name for the girl she would pretend to be, so she visited a baby-name-generator online and kept refreshing until she found one. She liked “Louisa Mayer” because it sounded enough like a real person. Slowly she built a realistic looking profile, claiming to currently be home-schooled but will be moving to area soon to start year eight. She started adding random people from the school, until nearly the whole high school were her friends. She started statuses simply like “Hi, I’m Louisa, I’m moving here soon and want some friends before I start!” and “Finally allowed to have a Facebook account = freedom.” It wasn’t long before the boys from the school were messaging her trying to get saucy details about who she was and her relationship status. Carol didn’t respond to many but kept it all clean, harmless and above board. It wasn’t long before Michael joined the scene.   
“Hey there, it’s nice to see a fresh face around here, I’m Michael, and I’m in the 9th Grade.”   
Carol waited, she didn’t want to come across as too eager “Hey.” She said, after making him wait twenty minutes “I’ll be starting eight grade next term, just trying to get some friends before coming. My family and I have been traveling around Australia for almost a year now.”  
“Ah yeah, did you get to go to like, the theme parks in Queensland?”   
“Yeah, that was our last stop actually. I got sooooooo sunburned.”   
“Aw so no chance of more cute pictures of your face?”   
“Not till it calms down! Least you didn’t ask for tits, like the other boys.”  
“Well, you could include them if you wanted… I’m joking, I’m joking,”   
Carol could tell he wasn’t joking but was determined to play along. She stopped replying for a few minutes to let him panic.  
“Are you there, cutie pie? Tell me what you like doing for fun?” He persisted.  
“Hmm, I like horses, do you have anything like that? I did some Googling, but nothing was conclusive?”   
“Actually, we do, but you don’t really wanna go there, this bitch Amy works there, she is not good news.”   
“Well, I don’t know her, she might be really nice?”  
“Just trust me. She’s a snake.”  
“You’re really keen to make me hate her already… Did something happen between you?” Carol probed.   
“She’s my ex… but well, you’ll find out soon enough, she faked a pregnancy and it was a huge drama, just to keep me as her boyfriend, crazy. So yeah, avoid if you can…”   
“Oh wow, that’s insane, anyway, I’m hitting the road, talk soon, k?” Carol signed out. It had been surprisingly easy to infiltrate the teenage gangs. She’d already gotten the schools biggest rumour out of Michael, and, she didn’t even exist by technicality. She took copies of all the conversations and added them to her Octopus file. It was important for her to keep track of everything she had told about “Louisa” in order to keep the stories consistent. There were already many little decisions that she had made on the fly that she wasn’t happy about, but at least kept her last destination in Queensland consistent; Dream World.   
Carol had only once experienced theme parks as a child around 17. She’d gone with a friend’s family on their vacation. She’d saved for months for spending money. Her friend’s family were more well off that hers, so they’d covered basically everything except tickets to where they wanted to go while on the vacation. She’d found the experience mostly unpleasant; she contracted an ear-infection after visiting a water-park, and, had to spend most of the holiday pumped-up on Sudafed and painkillers just to survive the sun, and heat. As far as Carol was concerned the parks were a damned waste of time and money. If anything, the only use of the places would be to distribute a toxin, or bio-chemical weapon and from there it could easily spread and would wipe out most of Australia within months. Ideal if you’re the government, or another intelligence really “And hey, if you’ve given them something slow-release they’ll go back off to their own houses, infect their own people and then slowly you’re playing a live version of the game Risk,” She said to herself as she scribbled a few more notes. She picked up her phone to text Megan “Do we own the boardgame Risk?”   
“No, but I think you can play a digital game online, Google it?” Megan replied minutes later.  
“Alright, thanks, when are you home again?”   
“A bit longer my love, as always. I love you, don’t think too hard, you’ll give yourself a migraine again.”   
“I won’t, love you too xoxo.” Carol set her phone on charge while she began mindlessly surfing the web. She needed a burner phone, to keep up with Louisa’s status and popularity growing. A burner phone is a prepaid phone number of where limited data is collected on their users. She also discovered an application called Burner which she could install to iOS to auto-generate disposable numbers if needed. Using this in tandem with a ‘Spoof Caller’ where she could hide her caller ID as well as take on those of others, create the perfect digital arsenal for battle. She ordered a second-hand, jailbroken iPhone from a buy and sell-site for $50 and got it shipped to her PO box. She used Louisa’s name just for continuity.   
Her phone beeped from the corner “Don’t forget to go outside, dear.” Another text from Megan. Carol smiled to herself.   
Carol took a walk over to the school; its derelict stillness was inviting. She walked through the old maths building, admiring the graffiti layers that had been slowly building since their ownership. Something caught her eye in the back of the room; a massive mound of fabric. Carol watched it closely, she was sure it was breathing. Carol was used to squatters, they happened around holiday seasons, or during wet and cold weather. Usually it was one of the community’s heroin addicts. Carol inched forward, looking at the hulking lump of a body.   
“Oi, this is private property, you need to go,” Carol said loudly “Did you fucking hear me?” The lump slowly started rising, turning a haggard face toward her. It was an older woman, scraggly grey hair with her frame being swallowed by a coat and blanket.   
“I heard you, why can’t you just leave me alone, I’m an old lady, I’m just trying to get some sleep.”  
“This is private fucking property, not a bloody Salvation Army Shelter. You should leave, before I get angry.” Carol was beginning to sound annoyed.   
“Make me princess, I’ve dropped bitches twice your size.” The older lady straightened herself out, puffing her chest out slightly toward Carol.   
“You really should not have said that,” Carol glared deeply “Alright, have your sleep, I’ll just… go.” She shrunk away slightly, she wanted to give the illusion that she was forfeiting an argument. Carol turned and walked quickly out of the maths building towards the basement. Megan and Carol kept tools in the dry storage. Carol decided that there was a pest that needed eradicating in her premises, so she started to look for the appropriate tools. She wasn’t as strong as Megan, so knives would not be in her favour. It would also leave a mess that her knees wouldn’t handle cleaning up again.  
Carol rummaged around the storage room for a few minutes before settling on a garbage bag. A large garbage bag with yellow ties. Assuming the woman would go straight back to her drug induced sleep, Carol would be able to sneak up and place the bag over the woman’s face to suffocate her. If done carefully, there would be no visible cause of death, other than a bunch of self-inflicted track marks. Carol doubted that such a woman could afford enough heroine to overdose, however; she knew a Jane Doe, drug addicted grandmother wouldn’t likely get an autopsy to rule it out, either.   
Carol crept back to the maths room, she could hear soft snoring coming from the rude-old-lady. Carol walked over to her, taking a moment to steady herself before carefully pulling the bag over her victim’s face. Carol held the bag closed by the yellow ties, it didn’t take long for the woman to reawaken, this time struggling for breath instead of wasting it with fighting words. She didn’t struggle; a probable result of a recent shoot up. She may have thought she was dreaming or hallucinating. After roughly three-minutes, her breath fell silent and Carol failed to find a pulse. Carol quickly put the bag in her pocket for disposal, before calling for an ambulance.   
Megan arrived shortly after the ambulance departed with the Jane Doe’s body. Carol was giving a statement to a uniformed Policeman. Carol ran over to Megan when she arrived. “What on Earth happened?!” Megan asked, holding her tightly.   
“I just did a sweep of the school, making sure it’s secure from squatters, and I found her, dead, in the maths terrace. I think she overdosed. I rang for an ambulance and they tried to revive her, but, nothing. I was too late.”   
“Alright, go finish your statement, I’ll be right here.” Megan sent Carol back to the officer. Megan headed inside to look at the scene. There were obvious signs of drug use, as well as no signs of a struggle or foul play.   
“Hey Meg, this one’s simple. Overdose on heroin, self-inflicted.” Frank Ford, the city’s coroner said in a bored tone. He was a middle-aged man, slim and six-foot-tall, thinning blonde hair and a dozen-or-so frown lines.   
“Excellent Frank, we like it: cut-and-dry, how long till we get the official cause of death?”  
“Couple of hours, maximum, they’ve taken her fingerprints and are running them through the database, I’ll bet she’s got a long history and probably not a lot of family around here.”  
“Frank… what happens to unclaimed bodies?” Megan asked curiously.   
“Well, if no one claims them, and we have an identity, they’re usually cremated and kept at the funeral home. At least that’s what I’ve heard. Once I pass’em on, I don’t generally focus on who has them,” Frank finished scribbling on his clipboard “See you at the station, hey?”  
“I’ll be there, thanks Frankie,” Megan headed back outside, Carol was waiting by her car. Megan walked over “Hey, Frankie says it was a heroin overdose, nothing you could have done.” Megan watched Carol carefully.   
“Poor thing, she was just this… tiny body in all those clothes and blankets. You start to wonder how her life got to this point, you know?” Carol faked genuine interest, but not well enough to trick Megan.   
“We’ll talk about that later,” Megan leaned in, seemingly for a kiss, but instead whispered “Get rid of the bag, I saw it in your back-pocket. Don’t screw it up. I don’t want anyone to have reason to want an autopsy, we both know what that will show.” Megan added warningly.   
“Don’t worry, everything is under control.”   
“It had better be. You don’t want to know what I’ll do to you if it isn’t.”  
“Actually… that sounds great.” Carol smiled, kissing her passionately on the lips. To anyone who had been watching, they were consoling and caring lovers.   
“Stay home till I get there, and if you could just… read a book? Or watch T.V? Just do nothing,” Megan kissed her forehead “Now, go home.”  
“Right… you’re such a spoilsport.” Carol said, frowning deeply.  
“Go home. Goodbye, I’ll see you tonight.” Megan watched as Carol walked slowly to their house. She was worried about her, Carol had never acted alone in one of these attacks.  
Carol was deep in thought the next evening, the day of Timothy’s final departure. Her mind was awash with whispers that said things like “Do you ever awake with sleep in your eyes and mistake it for death? Just the faintest darkness and crust is mistaken for mildew forming in the corner of your coffin. When you wipe it away it signals the start of a new day, one of many or even the last. For a split second, you’re in awe, shock, and questioning “Am I dead?” to yourself, repeatedly, a thousand times, silently in a minute. You’re not breathing, you’re between beats, but you’re alive yet. Sometimes I wake up, and all I can see is death as a fog around my room, filling my lungs with lead. Just a weightless, warm void that I welcome. It is so freeing to mistake yourself as dead each morning. I guess it means I make the most out of my days?   
People should welcome death, it shouldn’t be feared or worried about. I think about death a lot. The endorphins that must cancel the pain until the death-rattle escapes a person’s lips – it is beautiful. I’m rambling. Is there something deliciously different with my psyche? Would the future remember me for who I am or what I have done?  
Thomas’s body will be sent to sea during the next full moon, when the tide would be at it’s strongest, and, the night will be brighter than usual, so we won’t need extra equipment for lighting, I hope. I just want a quick drop, and then to be home before sun up.”   
It was a Saturday, Megan had the day off. Megan rolled over to look at Carol who was absentmindedly staring at the celling. She reached over and grabbed her throat, pulling her shocked body toward her for a deep kiss. Carol wrapped her hands around Megan’s neck, holding some skin with her sharp nails. Megan took both her hands and squeezed each side of Carol’s ribs, feeling her breath become shallower below her fingers. Carol gasped, biting Megan’s ear gently.   
“Good morning,” Carol whispered “This is a surprise… a good one…”   
“You seemed too deep in thought, I figured this would take your mind off it? Want me to fuck you while you tell me about what you did to that little old lady? Spare no details.” Megan pulled Carol by the ribs, into a straddling position over her hips.   
“Are you wired Officer? Is this a sting?” Carol asked playfully, as she reached between her own legs to touch upon Megan’s penis. Slowly she slid it within her with a soft moan.   
“Well if this is a sting, we may as well give them a show to listen to,” Megan thrusted upwards suddenly “Tell me, did you plan it? Or was it spontaneous? You’re not allowed to cum until you tell me, so no cheating.”   
“It was spontaneous, I asked her to leave and she was rude to me,” Carol grabbed both Megan’s breasts and held them tightly “I pretended to be shocked and put out, but then I thought about the weapons we had downstairs. Come on this isn’t fair, I’m so horny.”   
Megan thrusted her again in a rhythmic pattern, but not fast, nor deep enough for Caroline’s complete pleasure. She watched Carol’s face turn to sexual frustration “Go on.” Megan probed.   
“I know I’m not that strong and I didn’t want to make a mess, and, I thought if she was under the influence already, smothering her would be easy. Rope would have left more of a mark.” Carol reached down to touch herself, but Megan held her hands away.   
“Come on, what did you feel…?”   
“It was like being on this precipice of an orgasm, only I got off that time, you’re just being a fucking shallow fuck!” Megan backhanded her.   
“That was for being rude, you’ll get off, tell me about what your senses experienced, then, I’ll get you off.” Megan smiled as Carol scratched her across her chest.   
“I could feel the warmth of her breath on the outside of the bag, she didn’t even fight back, I think she was too stoned and thought she was dreaming. It was kind of boring, until right at the last second when everything just stopped. Then I was annoyed she didn’t realise I’d murdered her, she never got to know it was me. After all that foreplay, she died thinking she’d insulted me.” Megan flipped Carol onto her back, taking the lead role again.   
“Now, I want you to remember that the next time you consider going off plan and as a lone wolf, do you understand! You were sloppy and careless, you did it on our property without consulting me first. How do you think I explained that to the boss?!” Megan frustratedly drove herself deeper into Carol, hearing her moans twisted with a pleasured pain.   
“I’m sorry! I got so caught up, I know it was a wrong move, now we must be even more careful. It felt good at the time, but not as good as this. Are you sure you’re punishing me?!” Carols back arched toward her lover, as she grabbed the bedhead for stability.   
“I’m proud of you for doing it yourself, but fuck, next time you don’t have to. I would have mentored you! We promised each other that if we were going to do this, we would need to be completely open with our plans!” Megan grunted through gritted teeth.   
“OK, I understand, I get it, now just let me CUM!” Both women climaxed within seconds of each other, feeling their sweat cool down, and a slight shiver take control of their bodies. They laid on the bed for several minutes in silence.   
“That was great…” Megan murmured.   
“I love it when you’re angry. You’re so powerful… I could have been split in two.” Carol cuddled under Megan’s arm.   
“Mmhmm, I feel like I was going to. Now. Let’s go over what’s going to happen tonight.” Megan kissed Carol’s head lovingly.   
“Right, so at the southern end of Blackmans Bay Beach, is the start of a tide that heads out to Antarctica.”  
“And you’re sure about this?”   
“I did a lot of research, and I’ve been keeping up with the weather and tonight should be the perfect swell to send him out to sea. There’s a small cove below the dog park near the Scout Hut, it’s hard to climb down to, but it’s private. Plus, it’s going to be raining tonight so I doubt there will be many dogs and owners. We should be able to take the car right down to the start of the track, we might need to bring bolt-cutters to get through the gates.”  
“I’ve got those in the arsenal. So, can you bring me up to speed over a map and the weather forecast? I just want to make sure it’s perfect… he’s mostly frozen, so we need to get him out to sea before he thaws out and starts delivering evidence here, there and everywhere. Do you want to have a shower with me?”   
Carol shook her head “No, you go first, I think my legs are still jelly. I’m going to lay down until you’re done.”   
“Alright jelly legs, your loss, I was hoping for a round two.”   
“Raincheck, tonight after he’s gone, maybe we can even do it on the beach…?”   
“You know I hate sand, Caroline, we’ll wait till we are home, thank you.” Megan walked into the bathroom in a slight huff while Carol resumed her uninterrupted staring at the celling.  
“I hope this works Carol, or we are in deep shit,” Her inner monologue repeated. Carol was certain that her meticulous planning would lead to a proper execution of this plan, but there was always a seed of doubt she tried to hide from Megan. Carol had never dumped a body before, only read about, or seen it in the media “You’re only seeing the ones that get caught, no one would be able to show you the ones that didn’t.” She said to herself for comfort. It was a true statement she took faith in.   
Carol and Megan returned to cold storage at roughly nine, it was daylight savings and it was light enough to load a body into the car, but not so much that passers-by would identify what they were doing.  
Timothy was frozen solid, his torso and remainder of his minced extremities had turned blue, purple and deep black. It was a sorry sight for anyone that knew his ‘good side’ by the duo was compelled by their belief that this was a fair punishment for a life of sin.   
“Is he all here?” Megan asked, examining the body “Where’s his head?”  
“It’s there.” Carol casually pointed to the solidified head of their play-thing that had been somewhat displayed upon the handle of a broom.   
“So, let’s recount. We should have a head, torso, and some parts of two arms, and a thigh that’s either in pieces or barely hanging on.”  
“We need to use their sausages, should we send some to… oh what’s her name, the nice one who gave us the grinder?”   
“Lynette? That would make for a nice story… Let’s focus on the task at hand. Let’s get him into the plastic, then into the car, then we will decide what to do with the edible parts of him.”   
Carol nodded. Both women began to put protective clothing on: a jumpsuit and two pairs of gloves. Carol carefully wrapped the head in two plastic bags tightly while Megan did the same with his larger scraps. Together they bundled him into the back of Carol’s car. The drive to Blackmans Bay was roughly an hour as they tried to dodge cameras and large built-up areas. Their drive was uninterrupted and quiet.   
“Check the weather again.” Megan barked at Carol, as rain began to fall on their car. Megan turned the wipers up.   
“It is as predicted, this is the rain that accompanies the best wind and tides to dispose of him. I’ve checked 100 times.” Carol spoke softly through gritted teeth.   
“Well do it again. I don’t want any of this shit going wrong, OK?” Megan was more tense than usual.   
“No, I’m not going to, you’ll just have to trust me.” Carol watched as the pulled down off road toward the cove. There was a Scouting Hut to the right, and a sewage treatment plant on the far left. There were no houses around, and the sewage plant was automatic currently of the night. Megan turned her headlights off and slowly crept down the road till they came to a large, fenced dog-park. There was a boom-gate that separated the main road from the driveway that lead through the park to the cove. Carol got out of the car and took the bolt cutters to the lock, allowing the boom to be moved freely out-of-the way. Megan rolled through carefully, allowing Carol time to shut the gate behind her and get back into the car. The park was remarkably well kept, a barren paddock with short grass, a hydration station, bin, and plastic bag dispenser. It was one of few dog-friendly parks in the area. Carol was impressed by the set up.   
“We should get a dog.” She mentioned casually.   
“I don’t think we need a dog.” Megan gave her a strange look.   
“I’ve always liked the idea of a dog.”  
“You just poisoned like three, we are not getting a dog.”  
“That was part of the plan. Don’t you dare use that against me.” Carol crossed her arms.   
“Let’s just get through this first. If you really want a dog, we can get a dog.”  
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll poison it?”   
“Carol.”  
“Megan.”  
“Fuck, can you not be in a mood? We have work to do. Fuck.”  
“We’re here, let’s get to it, before I go all deranged and start doing crazy things.”   
Megan sighed as both exited the vehicle “How good is your night vision?”  
“I won’t need a torch if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve been here before.”   
“Right, you get the legs and head, I’ll carry the rest. Let’s go before we’re noticed.” She handed Carol two bundles.   
The decent to the cove wasn’t long but drastically became steeper with every metre. Carol followed Megan down the twisting goat-track and onto the rock-covered beach. The tide was in, and there was less than a metre to stand on.   
“According to the map, that point is where we need to swim out to, dump, and watch. Understand?” Megan asked Carol quietly.  
“No, it’s just the whole plan I mapped out, why wouldn’t I remember that detail?” Carol replied angrily.   
“Fuck you, come on. Let’s strip off, this guy is heavy enough even when half of him is still in our freezer.” Megan unwrapped the body parts but left them on the plastic while she stripped to her underwear. Carol did the same.  
Both women swum silently side by side into the water until neither could feel the bottom, they kept swimming until they came free of the current that would accidentally sweep the body back to shore. Together they released the corpse, and while treading water, watched it be carried almost out of sight. They slowly swum back to shore, tired from the ordeal. Once on drier land, they were sure to put all their belongings back on before packing up for the return climb. The weather was beginning to pick up, and as they slowly climbed back up the goat-track, waves began licking at their heels. Finally, after executing what seemed like a faultless plan, the two climbed back into their car.   
“I think we did it,” Megan smiled in the soft glow of the overhead car light “Good job, that was hard work.”  
“I hope a shark eats his dick.”   
Megan’s smile turned to hearty laughter, the tension in the car had been relieved, she leaned over and kissed Carol lovingly “I mean it, good job. Your first body dump, you did well.”  
“Had a good teacher. Right, let’s get home, I can’t feel my toes.”


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six:  
Caroline decided to return to work over a week early. She couldn’t stand doing nothing at home now that the Sausage Boy’s situation had been taken care of. Due to her early return, her calendar was free for the day. She arrived at work just after recess, and all the students were in their classes. She decided to check in on the relationship between Michael, Chelsea and Amy.   
She started with Chelsea’s locker, searching through her handbag for her mobile. Last time she’d checked, Chelsea didn’t have a passcode on her phone, and she was hoping this would still be the case. Amy was still off for at least another week due to the trauma Carol had convinced her father that she’d experienced, and Carol was hoping there would be some feisty conversations between the pair. Once unlocked, Carol began to scroll through her Facebook application, however; with the risk of being caught-in-the act, she decided she didn’t have enough time to fully read what she wanted to. Carol decided that the best way to keep track of Chelsea’s interactions was to change Chelsea’s password. Scrolling through the settings, she found a way to change the password easily, as Chelsea had her phone save her original passwords. Carol changed it to something reasonable, allowing the phone to resave the password and continue to be logged into other locations. She then opened her Gmail app and deleted the Facebook automated email that alerted users to their passwords being changed. Carol hoped that even if Chelsea did eventually change her password again, that she would allow all other locations to remain logged in, securing her spyhole would stay open.   
Carol quickly wiped down the phone with an alcohol wipe, replaced it back in it’s spot and closed the locker securely. She then walked past the eighth-grade classrooms to her office where she promptly logged into Chelsea’s account into the browser of her newly-arrived burner phone for the Louisa persona. Chelsea’s phone was watching-paint-drying level boring. For someone that spoke with such intelligence, cockiness and coy while seated in her chair, her Facebook was bordering on belonging to a Grandmother. The only one she ever argued with was Amy, and after a few initial insults thrown left and right, it was radio silence. Carol was disappointed, and theorised that one of them had lawyered up and forced the silence from being broken while the poisoned dogs case was still pending.   
Caroline decided to check on her relationship with Michael. Interestingly, their messages were filled with sickening love and support of each other. What surprised Carol was that Chelsea had mentioned the Louisa and had strictly told Michael not to go near her ‘or else’. This had caused an argument, and again, radio silence since early the previous morning. Caroline smirked at how easily it had been to infiltrate a bunch of teenagers even when you technically don’t exist. Carol took some screenshots of useful interactions before closing the browser. She then downloaded the Facebook app before loading her Louisa profile. Having forgotten to log in for a few days, her messages had stacked up. Soon she was looking through messages from all walks of life at the school: head of the football team, the technology committee, even the committee responsible for the year-book and other such publications had been in touch about getting a report on her ‘first thoughts of Sunflower Cove Highschool’ for the school newsletter. Largely her messages alerts were from Michael, who had seemingly become infatuated with her in her absence. From a dozen ‘hey, what are you doing?’ to ‘I miss you, babe, talk to me, please.’ It was interesting how quickly his feelings had become attached to the fictious Louisa.   
She started to reply “Hey! Sorry, I haven’t had a phone, it got lost in transit, I have a new one now, I wasn’t ignoring you, I promise.”   
Within seconds, the chat became alive.   
“Oh, hey Louisa, great to hear from you again, I’m in maths and it sucks, wish you were here.”  
“I will be soon. How’s the school now? Some chick wants me to write my first impressions down for an article. Weird right?”  
“Bahahaha yeah, those nerds are weird, they somehow think a newspaper will lead them to world fame one day. They’re the kind of kids that walk around dressed as fake foreign-exchanged students just to look more artistic or something else. I don’t know.”  
“That sounds racist kind of, hey?”  
“I guess, but they’re delusional and would probably print an article if you called them that. So, when are you coming to school?”   
“Soon, just trying to find a place to rent at the moment, but soon.”  
“I want to meet you, I think we could be very good friends.” He sent with a winking face, followed by one that seemed to blow kisses.   
“Don’t you have a girlfriend? Chelsea? You have her on your page.”  
“Oh her, yeah well, we aren’t exclusive you know, not exclusive, we just say that to keep our parents at bay.”  
“Oh, well, if you were my boyfriend, we’d have to be exclusive, I can’t be a side chick, it doesn’t suit me.”  
“Are you hitting on me?” He asked, Carol sent a few love hearts “Hahaha ok then, well when you get here, we can be exclusive if you want.”  
“That’s if I like you.”  
“Oh, you’ll like me.”  
“What will you say to Chelsea.”  
“It’s over, hahaha I dunno, never broke up with someone I still go to school with in that sot of way, I guess I’ll text her?”  
“That would be cruel.”  
“What do you care, you don’t know her? She isn’t that nice.”  
“Neither it seems was Amy, geez, you might have bad taste man, I hate to break it to you, but God, what bad luck you’ve had.”  
“Hahahaha maybe, maybe you’ll change my luck?”  
“Alright Mickey, I’ll talk to you later, gotta go, k? xoxo.”  
“Alright Mini Mouse, don’t leave me hanging now that you have that new phone xoxox.”   
Carol almost felt the need to shower, the stench of teenage hormones was emanating thickly from the phone. Carol gagged, turned the phone off and placed it within the locked drawer of her desk. Carol sighed and turned on her kettle. On her desk was something she hadn’t noticed on her arrival, a new referral form for an incoming transfer student. Carol sat down and opened the file. Hardly believing her eyes, a new student Lou Valentine, was due to start this coming Monday. Lou was just shy of eighteen-years-old, however; to start in the eleventh grade on a part-time enrolment. Lou’s picture looked eerily like the image that Carol was using to catfish the teenagers: a skinny, Asian girl, hazel eyes. This coincidence took the breath out of Carol, she decided to text the new findings to Megan and await her reaction.   
“We can use that.” Megan sent in a brief text.  
“How?” Carol replied.   
“Find a reason someone would make a fake account for her, you said she was part time, why is she part time? Isn’t that usually a disability thing, or a ‘here we are to help you transition’ thing, I don’t know I’m not a teacher, you’re the one that works at a school. Find a reason why someone would make a fake account on her?”  
“Alright, text soon, I’ll find a reason.” Carol began deep-diving into the file. Lou was the daughter of a Caucasian father and Asian mother. There was a large amount of evidence in the notes to suggest that the mother was a mail-or-bride and that the father was an abusive misogynist towards the mother, but treated Lou as a princess. That was until Lou came out as gender-fluid at the age of 15 after regularly dating many gender identities. It is noted in her file that she prefers the feminine pronoun, but the gender fluid name ‘Lou’ instead of her birth-name Luci. The father, upon hearing this about his daughter threw her out and took his wife to Japan to live. Lou was left in shelter in the centre of Hobart with nothing but new emotional baggage. It seems that this year would mark Lou’s return to formal education after being recently settled into her own flat. It was not unusual for students to live alone in year eleven and twelve, either by choice or necessity. She began having thoughts that Lou probably had a hard time adjusting from being pampered like a princess by her father, to having to take care of herself.   
Her part time enrolment was a recommendation from her former psychologist, doctor and social worker, as Lou is said to have unpredictable moods and reactions. Lou had started a school a few months after losing her home, however; was the victim of bullying and harassment there. The tip of Carol’s nose tingled slightly when she read over the claims of bullying and harassment, if this was the case, it would be entirely possible for someone from her old school to use this as a motive for making a fake Facebook profile. Upon finding this information, Carol chose to delete the Louisa Meyer Facebook account, so that hopefully it wouldn’t make too much of a difference to Lou’s arrival. Hopefully a rumour swept under the rug.   
“Or at the very least, something the kids will talk to you about, and hopefully you’ll make the right friends,” She said to herself, re-boiling the kettle to make herself an instant coffee “Like Michael. Boy, I can’t wait to add you into my tentacles. You’ll suit just fine if you do as you’re told,” Carol picked up her phone to text Megan “Hey, got info, you were right as usual. I have a tentative tentacle to connect someone from her old school to making the fake account I made.”  
“Good work. This is going to be an event, I can feel it,” Carol stirred her coffee, smiling at her phone when there was suddenly a knock on the door. Carol turned. She couldn’t make out who it was through the frosted glass “Come in?”  
It was Chelsea “Hey doc, you free? Wanna smoke and talk? I kinda have missed you.”   
“Of course, Chelsea, I’m free, you make yourself at home,” Carol carefully sat Lou’s file on the table beside her chair before sitting with her fresh coffee. Chelsea dumped her bag in the corner and slumped into the armchair “Tell me, what have I missed, what’s been happening? What do you want to talk about?”   
“There’s a new girl starting, she’s got this fucking Facebook page, she’s flirting with my boyfriend. Louisa someone. I told her to back off and now her account is gone.”  
“When did the account disappear?”  
“Like, yesterday? Today? I don’t know, I went to tell her to back off and it was gone.”  
“Maybe she’s backed off?”  
“Maybe, or she’s just blocked me. Michael showed me that it’s gone on his profile too.”   
“Ok, this is clearly upsetting you. Look, I’ll get you a glass of water, try and take some breaths, have you been working on those breathing techniques I taught you? Square breathing?”   
“Yes, in for four, our for four.”  
“Ok, do it,” Carol stood and moved towards her sink, in doing so knocking the stack of paperwork beside her chair. Files went everywhere “Damnit. Hang on,” Carol started to pick them up and Chelsea soon followed to help. Carol could see her studying the picture of Lou. Carol let her linger a few seconds more before scooping it up with the rest of the paperwork “Thanks Chelsea, I feel like someone has moved my furniture. Maybe the cleaner.”  
“Hey um… can I ask who that girl is, she um, she looks like the girl that friended everyone on Facebook?” Chelsea asked curiously.  
“Oh um, that’s a new student, she’s starting on Monday, this um, this current Monday,” Carol pretended to be absent-minded and flustered.   
“What’s her name?”  
“I shouldn’t really tell you, but it’s Lou… Lou Valentine. You said she looks like the girl from your Facebook? Do you have that photo?”  
“Err… I think I have a screenshot let me check…?” She riffled through her phone and pulled up a screenshot of Louisa’s profile.   
“Ha, they do look pretty similar,” Carol remarked, comparing the photo from Lou’s file to the camera image “But someone’s edited the eyes to be lighter on yours.”   
“Do you think this account is hers? Or is it like a fake account do you think? You know how there’s that rumour going around that they’re duplicating accounts?”   
“I think it is more likely that someone has made this without her knowledge. Look, let’s look up her real account if she has one? Can you search it for me, Lou Valentine?” Carol watched as Chelsea searched for Lou’s real profile.   
“Hey, she had a real one by the looks, what do we do now?”   
“Well, I think it would only be fair to alert her that someone is trying to be her at her new school, maybe show her what the fake her has been doing so that she can be mentally prepared. Befriend her, that way you’ll get to know her before Michael, you can suss out if she’s the type of person to steal boyfriends, which, judging by the fact she’s kissing a girl in her profile picture, I would say she’s not down for stealing boyfriends.” Carol resumed her seat and gestured for Chelsea to do the same.   
“Thanks Doc, you really nailed that one for me, I thought I was going to flip out and I don’t know- ”  
“Poison some dogs?”  
Chelsea went silent “I didn’t do that you know, I have an alibi. Amy is delusional.”   
“Tell me what happened in your eyes then. Why did Amy try and shiv you in the playground? Well, at least pretend to. I didn’t actually see what she had in her hand.”   
“Once upon a time, not so long ago, we got into a Michael argument again, and I may have told her she didn’t deserve her dogs.”  
“Is that the whole truth?”  
“It’s what I told the cops, it’s what the cops found on my phone.”  
“You never threatened to kill them?”  
“I never hurt her damn dogs. You know what? I wouldn’t put it past her to pull something like this on her own and try and frame someone like me. Another attention grab for Michael. When will she realise that she’s yesterday’s meat?”  
“I can’t answer that unfortunately, I’m only hear to listen to you and offer advice. If I were you, I’d try and get this new girl on side, and try to forget Amy. If the cops couldn’t find anything on you, then you don’t have anything to hide right? Besides, the dogs are alive, the worst you’d get is a fine and maybe a written warning at this point.”   
“You really think so?”  
“I’m engaged to a cop.”  
“Right… what if they had a hair or something else that connected you to the scene?”  
“Well, if that hypothetically was the case, then that would be quite different, that would be stronger evidence and may end up with a conviction of something, you’d be best to talk to somewhere like Legal Aid in Hobart.”  
“Right. Ok, but you reckon that if they had something like that, I’d be going down with the fishes?”   
“Don’t be melodramatic, it wouldn’t be as bad as that. Your life wouldn’t be over, you’re not going to die, and you have plenty of life left to make up for any mistakes that happen now.”  
“You’re cool D’Wyatt. Thank you.”   
“Now is there anything else?”  
“No, I better get back to English class.”  
“Here, I’ll write a note explaining where you’ve been.” Carol took out a sticky note and her pen, writing Chelsea came to see me but now is ready to return to class – Caroline, before handing it to Chelsea. Chelsea left quietly without shutting the door behind her. Carol watched after her, noticing the bustle of students changing classes. Michael was among those walking past. He noticed Carol watching him and came toward her.   
“Hello Michael.”  
“Hey Dr. D’Wyatt, you free?” He looked a little awkward at asking, but Carol nodded and gestured he come through. He sat down in her arm chair nervously.   
“What can I do for you today, Michael?”   
“Well, I want to break up with Chelsea, all the shit that’s been goin’ on with her and Amy, it’s doing my head it, it’s like this soap opera shit, they’re just trying to win me over like I’m a teddy at the show.”  
“Most boys your age would be happy when a girl or two starts fawning over you, and for a long time I thought that was part of your personality. What’s caused a radical change in ideas?” Carol took out her note book.   
“I met another girl online.”  
“Like… a prostitute?”  
“No! Nothing like that!”   
“Alright, so a real girl. Does she go to this school?”  
“No, she’s transferring, so I guess I don’t mean no, I mean like, um, not right now?”   
“OK, so you’ve met a new student that’s transferring her and you’re in love with her?”  
“Yeah…yeah I think I am.”  
“Have you ever met her?”  
“Well no, not yet.”  
“And you realise how absurd you’re sounding?”  
“You’ve never online dated or met anyone?” Carol shook her head.  
“I met my fiancé through family friends. None of this Tinder or Facebook dating, how can you be sure that anyone is really who they say they are online? How do you know that the person’s photo isn’t just something they’ve stolen and that it’s really a fat, bearded bloke in his Mother’s basement trying to lure in children, a predator?” Carol watched as his ham head tried to come up with a thought that wasn’t controlled by the urges of his penis.  
“Ah… well I guess you can’t, but I just know she’s real and she’s so perfect.”  
“What if I told you that I have already had several students come and speak to me today regarding the same girl. You’re not the only one that has professed love for her too. What if I told her that I have proof that the profile you’ve been speaking to isn’t even the real name of the person it is pretending to be, and that the real girl in the photos has no idea that it’s been made in her image? Now I’ve reported it to Facebook and had the account flagged for being fake, and I think it has been shut down.”  
“…It can’t possibly be the same girl, I don’t believe you.” He started to shake with anger slightly.   
“Asian girl, pretty, Louise or something? Yeah not real, the real Lou is starting on Monday and my guess is someone from her old school is trying to get her back from something. Either way, that account that you have fallen in love with? Not real. You want my advice? Go spend some time with your actual girlfriend instead of chasing other girls online? Why look around for what you haven’t got, when you already have something pretty good?”  
Michael considered for a moment before standing and abruptly leaving in anger “You’re full of shit Da-why-et.” he shouted from the corridor as he headed back to class.   
“Fucking hormones.” Carol muttered, taking a sip of her now cold coffee, before standing to close the door once more.   
“Hey, Carol I didn’t know you were back, it’s good to see you.” Carol turned, it was Marie Avery, she taught French, English History and Sewing. She was a skinny woman, always wearing hippie-inspired, colour-vomit tops with felt-like pants. She was aged beyond her years due to her strict vegan diet. Her thirty-five-year-old features slowly resembling the knots in a tree. She always wore musk perfume to hide the subtle smell of marijuana that always followed her.  
“Good Afternoon Marie. Yes, I got stir crazy at home, thought I’d come back and bury myself with paperwork. How have things been?”  
“Same old, same old. Hey, did you get the referral for Lou Valentine? Yeah, the boss asked met to put it on your desk, I hope you don’t mind.”  
“No, and thank you yes, I have been reading it. Interesting case.”  
“Yes, I taught her and Vale Gardens District School when she was in about year nine, I think. She shaved all her hair into a mohawk and started calling herself Lou instead of Luci, dated most of her peers and was quite a happy child until her Dad found out. Then it just sorts of, went downhill. I transferred here during that time, I had wondered what became of her.”  
“Yeah well it isn’t good, apparently she’s living in a funded apartment on her own and her parents are back in Japan.”  
“Yeah, I may have read the report as I was putting it on your desk.”   
“Marie…” Carol expressed exasperatedly.  
“Hey, I was just making sure she was the same girl. It was good to see her alive. I have heard some stories from that house that you wouldn’t believe.”  
“Why don’t you come and tell me, maybe it will help me build a better picture?” Carol gestured into her office.  
“Well alright, if you think it would help. It’s my off period after all. Have you got tea?”  
“I always have tea.” Both women sat down as the jug slowly boiled in the background.   
“The story that I heard was that Lou’s mother had received a cat one Christmas, and later the next year, the Dad beat it to death with a rolling pin because it pissed on an expensive rug.”  
“Oh god, animal cruelty.” Carol wrinkled her nose.  
“Yeah, and, Luci saw that. I reckon that changed her. Seeing her dad be so brutal, wouldn’t be nice.”   
“No, especially at an impressionable age. Know anything else?”  
“Well, between you and me, you know how the file says that the family went to Japan?”   
“Yes?”  
“Well,” Marie leaned closer “They’re not, that’s just wear Luci was told they would be. They haven’t left the county, but Child and Family Services can’t locate them. There were tickets brought for Japan, but; they never got on the plane, weird right?”   
“How did you find that out exactly, it’s not in my file.”  
“I overhead her social worker talking with Kent.”  
“You were earwigging.”  
“I was professionally curious, she is a former student after all, I think I have a right to be concerned.”  
“Alright, spare me the speech of a Martyr, tell me, did they say where the parents might have been or go to?”  
“Nope, no clue, they dropped off the face of the Earth about a week after kicking Lou out. Wherever they are, I guess they have made it very clear that they don’t want her to find them.”  
“Right… well it has been just lovely talking to you Marie, but I need to make a phone-call. Urgently.” Carol stood from her chair and opened the door.   
“What about tea?”  
“Raincheck,” Carol was already fumbling with her phone. She made sure that Marie left and was out of earshot before calling Megan.   
“Babe, it’s me, are you able to pull up missing person’s reports for me?”  
“Yeah, why? And for who?”  
“Um… let me see,” she pulled out Lou’s file “Kaori and Gregory Valentine.”  
“Are they missing?”  
“Not sure, the kid said they kicked her out and then swanned off to Japan, but no one can find any evidence that they got on the plane, just that two tickets were bought about a week after the kid was kicked out. I am wondering if CFS has put in a missing person’s report to reconcile the family?”  
“Alright, I’m looking it up now.”  
“Great. Anything?”   
“Not a report from CFS, a report forwarded from the Japanese embassy, raising concerns for Kaori and her husband who were due in Japan, but never showed up. Family in Japan have reported them missing saying that it is very unlike Kaori to not want to contact them.”  
“That’s very interesting. I wonder if the kid knows anything, or even knows they haven’t made it to Japan.”  
“I guess you’ll have to find out.”  
“I feel another cup of tentacle tea needs brewing.”  
“That’s my girl.”


	7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven  
Lou’s arrival created a buzz around the school, completely overshadowing Amy’s return. Having allowed Chelsea to view the real photo of Lou during their last, impromptu session, Chelsea had managed to convince the student population that someone had made it from Lou’s former school. Lou was already popular, a strange and beautiful woman who was the victim of internet fraud was certainly a story that had tongues wagging.   
Chelsea was quick to befriend her as Carol had suggested. Carol could see the pair gossiping quietly to each other in the foyer. Chelsea was younger than Lou by some years, however; her personality could be quite bubbly and infectious when she wanted it to seem that way. Michael tried his hand at an early invitation to dinner with Lou but was dramatically rejected.   
“I prefer older, cis-gendered women,” She announced loudly “Not a little boy with a dick that can’t stay hard for more than three minutes.” This caused un uproar of hysterical laughter at Michael’s expense. Michael was shocked and enraged, punching a locker nearby on his dramatic exit.   
“That was sick.” Chelsea said through laughter.  
“Yeah, you should definitely dump him, he’s a waste of time.”  
“Oh girl, consider it done. We are so over.”  
“Text it to him, break his heart.” Lou said more quietly.   
Carol quickly noted the time and location on a sticky note for a future session with Michael. As she watched the pair walk away to their first classes, Carol notice Amy’s sneak entry “Hey Amy,” She said in a welcoming voice accompanied with a slight wave. Amy walked over to her “Hey, ‘good to see you’re back how have things been?”  
“Oh, hey D’Wyatt,”   
“How are your dogs?”  
“Yeah they’re ok, they recovered.”   
“Did the police find anything useful, is anyone going to get charged?”  
“Well, they found one of Chelsea’s hairs, so there is that, my Lawyer is working on it.”  
“Well, I hope you get a result.”  
“Yeah, me too to be honest.”   
“Did you hear all of the fuss just now?”  
“What fuss, doctor?” Amy was wearing much more plain clothes, Carol noticed. She was in over-sized blue jeans and a grey Gap hoodie that was more like a dress. He hair had a slight shadow at her roots where the bleached blonde was growing out. She seemed drained. Carol guessed that her week off was less than peaceful.   
“I think Michael just got dumped by Chelsea. In front of everyone.”  
“Oh um, maybe I should check in on him?”  
“I think he might appreciate that. Hey, how’s Andre, have you seen him this week?”  
“I’ve been riding him every day.”  
“Good, that must have been relaxing?”  
“It’s the only time I’ve been relaxed in a while.” She was interrupted by the first period’s bell.   
“Guess you better be going to class. Feel free to stop by at any time. I have an open schedule this week, for now.”   
“I’ll definitely keep that in mind, thank you.” There was something strange about her voice, it wasn’t the usual faux-American accent that she tried to pull off.   
“Try and have a good day.” Carol added with a half-smile.   
Carol returned to her office and logged into Chelsea’s Facebook account. There she watched in live time several conversations between Lou, Amy, Chelsea and Michael.   
“You’re totally dumped. I can’t believe you asked Lou out while I was right next to you, it’s so over.” Chelsea had typed.  
“Well as far as I’m concerned that’s just fucking fine. I can’t believe she turned me down like that, so fucking insulting.” Michael replied.   
“You deserved it. Don’t message me anymore. Go back to Amy.”  
“You know what? I just might, I don’t want to date a dog-killer anyway.”  
“Just keep adding it to the list, I’m a baby-killer and a dog-killer now. Neither one is true but go the fuck ahead.” The conversation went quite after that. Chelsea began to send screen caps of their exchange to Lou.   
“Argh, forget him, he’s so not worth it, you can do so much better.” Lou typed reassuringly.   
“Fuck though, who the fuck does that? What was he expecting you to do?”  
“Boys don’t think. Not with their brains anyway. I’m just the new vagina in town, he wanted to get it first. It happens all the time. You watch, if someone else new starts, boys will start doing the same. Something about that exotic pussy.”   
“You’re so cool, you know that, right?”  
“I know. So, tell me about the Gap girl that just walked in?” The was a small pause in the conversation after Lou messaged that.  
“Oh, her, she’s Amy, another of Michael’s exes.”  
“She’s kind of cute.”  
“She’s too young for you.”  
“That’s true. She’s in your grade?”  
“Only for a couple of classes, she’s advanced for her age, I think.”  
“Right. Well, what’s her story anyway?”  
“Oh, she faked a pregnancy to try and keep Michael.”  
“This school is intense.” Lou sent a few upside-down-smiling emojis.   
“It was insane. I’ll tell you more at lunch?”  
“Argh no, tell me now, this class is hella boring.”  
“Alright, well, he dumped her for me, then she claimed she was having his baby, and then she claimed miscarriage and wrote a whole ugly thing across our lockers. I think her family sent her to a psych ward during the holidays to calm-her-farm. Now she works at the stables part time and is generally a nobody. Fairly popular nobody, but no longer the centre of attention.”   
“So, she likes horses?”  
“Don’t even think about it, she’s too young for you, and she’s drama.”  
“But she’s cute… I do wish she was older, I don’t want to be a cradle snatcher, or worse, get like, charge. She’s legal, isn’t she?”  
“I don’t think she’s 16 yet,”  
“So how did she manage to get with Michael?”  
“He denied every sleeping with her, the police interviewed him and everything, he just straight up said he never. And with no baby, or baby-body to prove he did. They dropped the investigation.”   
“Wow. I didn’t know I was signing up for this kind of drama, so you’re telling me that they actually interviewed him?”  
“Well, yeah after she graffitied the lockers and had her breakdown, the cops came, and they interviewed everyone. She claimed she had a miscarriage but couldn’t prove it, he denied every sleeping with her, I have no idea if that’s true or not, but because there was nothing to suggest there ever was a baby, she got a small caution for tampering with school property, and they cop went on their way.”  
“Well, this is fascinating, way more interesting than English class. It’s a pity crazy usually comes with such a pretty face, you know?”   
“There’s plenty of girls around. Besides, you’ll be 18 soon, then you can go out clubbing.”  
“Yeah, in Hobart’s one gay bar, Flamingos. It’s not like I haven’t been there before. I used to sneak in all the time. I mean there’s some good people, but it seems to be just like this school: too small of a community and everyone knows everyone else, drama, infighting. I mean I just want to smoke pot, drink good gin, and get laid. I’m a woman of simple pleasures.”   
“Wait you smoke pot?”  
“Who doesn’t kiddo?”  
“I have some in my bag, wanna smoke it at lunchtime?”  
“Oh wow, I think you’re my new best friend.” Both teenagers logged off. Carol was stunned at Lou. She was confident and casual. Wasn’t the slightest bit interested in sharing more than surface information about herself, however; was keen to get to know the inner workings of the school as quickly as possible. Carol grew keen to have her sit and drink an octopus tea.  
“You are an untapped maple-tree,” Carol said as she scrolled through Lou’s profile “You’re going to fit in so perfectly, even better than the fake girl I made. You’re perfect.” Carol touched two fingers onto Lou’s profile picture in admiration.   
Carol called the office and had them send Lou to her. Lou knocked a short time later, entering before Carol could say ‘come in’. Luckily, she had already closed off Chelsea’s Facebook page.   
“The office said you wanted me,” Lou said abruptly “You’re the school shrink aren’t you, the gay one, with the wife?”  
“Welcome Lou, I’m Carol. I am the school’s psych, and no, I’m not yet married, we’re still trying to get our house renovated first. Please, sit down, you would be aware of your referral to me? From your social worker?”   
“A nosy man, he’s kind of creepy, he probably thinks me as some tortured, shrinking violet. When really, I should be thanking my family for ditching me, my life is great without them.” She chose to sit on the bean bag rather than the arm chair. The bean bag was basically unused in comparison.   
“He struck me as a nosy man, at least he read that way in your file. So, I’m guessing you haven’t heard from your parents then? Would you like a cup of tea?”   
“I don’t drink the stuff and no, I haven’t heard from them. Don’t want to. Don’t need to. Screw them.”  
“That sounds like it’s tinged with anger if you ask me.”  
“I didn’t ask you.”  
“Well, I’m here when you want to talk, no matter what it’s about, however; your case worker has insisted we meet twice weekly regardless. We can either talk about something that’s bothering you and that may potentially help you work through, or nothing. I have to sign off that you have attended as part of your program at this school, so whatever the topic is up to you.”  
“And I can tell you anything and you can’t tell anyone?”  
“Unless you’re planning on hurting yourself or another person. Then I’m obligated to stay something.”  
“What about past things, like things that have happened?”  
“What happened in the past is hear-say and there’s not that much I can do about it.”  
“If I murdered someone, could you tell anyone?”  
“No, but if you discussed a plan which sounded like you might murder someone, I would have to say.”  
“So basically, you work only for the living?”  
“Well when you put it like that, yes. You’re smart, aren’t you Lou?”  
“I guess so.”  
“Do you think you’re smarter, about the same, or a little below others?” Carol took out a pencil and scribbled soft notes in Lou’s file.   
“I think I’m about the same.”   
“What are your skills? Do you find you’re good at reading people, or reading between the lines?”  
“I think I’m pretty good at insulting people.” Lou had a deeper voice, neither overtly feminine or masculine. She had a slight accent which Carol theorised was mimicked from the way her mother taught her both English and Japanese as a child.   
“Is that a wall, a defence?”   
“I don’t understand.” Lou paused, eyeballing Carol. Carol could feel her stare trace her entire body.  
“You’re a smart girl, are you insulting people to hurt others, or, to stop them from hurting you. Get them first then they can’t possibly hurt you, unlike your parents.”  
“My parents… My parents didn’t hurt me.”  
“I’d be pretty hurt if my parents decided my sexuality wasn’t ok, or my gender identity. I’d be even more hurt if they moved to get away from me, particularly to another country.”  
“Well doctor, I think you’re barking up the wrong garden path. I’m not hurt by what they did, I’m free because of what they did.”  
“Free is an interesting choice of words. Did you feel trapped at home?”  
“Didn’t you at my age?”  
“Actually no, I was already studying university courses then, I loved being with my family. They were strict but fair.”  
“Well good for you and your perfect, white-picket family, mine wasn’t like that.”  
“Isn’t.”  
“Excuse me?”  
“You used past-tense, you should have said ‘Isn’t like that’ as your family isn’t dead, merely separated.”  
“They’re dead to me…”  
“Tell me,” Carol lent forward slightly in her chair, the front of her blouse falling open, attracting the gaze of the girl before her “Someone that wasn’t hurt by their family, in one way or another, wouldn’t turn around and say they’re dead to me. I think you should try my tea, it might surprise you.” Carol watched the girl stare at her breasts for a moment, before sitting back in her chair and resuming eye contact.   
“Alright, I’ll try your tea, what makes it so special?”  
“It’s my own blend, I get it imported, I’ve never had anyone dislike it. Please only put one sugar in it, you’ll spoil it with any more.” Carol reached over and turned her jug on to boil.   
“My last doctor didn’t offer tea.”  
“They say that a hot mug of drink mimics the feeling we get from a reassuring hug, it makes people feel safe. This office is a safe place. Tea makes people feel safe, you can probably put two and two together for a correct answer. This is a milk less tea.” Carol took down some plain mugs, the sugar, and a couple of spoons.   
“What’s it meant to taste like?” Lou asked with what sounded like genuine curiosity.   
“People tend to say different things, why don’t you tell me? It’s brewed at a temperature that is safe for drinking straight aware, normal boiling water would destroy it. I take it without sugar, but most students that have had it prefer it with a cube. Help yourself.” Carol held her gaze as she poured the mugs full of tea and was unblinking as she watched Lou take a small sip, add sugar, stir, then sip again. She was a pretty girl, having benefitted from the best of both her races. She had double-lidded eyes naturally, a skin tone somewhere between light tan and olive. Her hair was shoulder length but warn in a fish-tail braid. She wore a plain, aged, black hoodie, with black skinny jeans and knee-  
“I definitely like it better with sugar… it tastes familiar, I think my Mum used to drink something similar. I remember tasting something similar. It’s nice, I’m not usually a warm drink person, but you’re right, it is nice to hold, relaxing to smell.” Carol sensed her drug was beginning to take effect, imagining a tentacle slowly descend deeply into Lou’s throat.   
For some students, they become slower, more introverted but deliberate with their speech, for other students, they begin to spill secrets like the tea pours from the spout. A smaller, but third category, become euphoric, the tea acting as an aid to free them from the shackles of deep thoughts. Carol felt as though Lou would fall into this category. She stayed quiet and watching Lou’s shoulders drop into a relaxed mountain, and her face to start looking a little rosy.   
“Tell me about the friends you have made so far, tell me everything you know about them so far?”   
Lou was in deep, her pelvis was tingling, as if a man with four hands was poking her softly, she felt so relaxed, Carol’s voice was calming, sexy, soothing. She could hear it like a ship sees a lighthouse and found herself dribbling her words without much control over what was being said “Just the one really, she’s a couple of grades lower, Chelsea Smith. She reached out last week online and told me that someone made a fake Facebook account of me, even showed it to me, she said that who ever it was targeted her boyfriend and tried to seduce him. Then, I couldn’t believe it, here we are the first day, and her douchebag of a boyfriend, comes up to us in the lobby, and he goddamn asked me out? In front of his girlfriend, what the fuck was that about?”   
“Met anyone else?” Carol probed in a quiet, monotone voice.   
“I saw the school-famous Amy. Chelsea told me all about her. She’s cute.”  
“You like her?”  
“I like you more, I have a soft spot for older, white, cis women. You are right up my alley.”  
“I’m your doctor, and I’m ten years your senior. You’re not my type. I too like older women. I’m sure you’ll make a girl happy soon enough.”   
“Yeah, I’m going to go for Amy, even if Chelsea and she are mortal enemies.”   
“She’s not of legal age.”  
“I’ll wait, I’ll wait till she’s 16, it’s only in a few months, I’m not a pervert. Besides, I’m only a year older, I feel like that’s not a problem.”   
“I just don’t want you to get into trouble.”  
“I’m good at that, but not in this circumstance. She seems sweet. Hey, do you know where she works, I’d like to go visit her.”  
“Its near the Lea, on the Southern Outlet; Brumby Stables, I think. She works the weekends. It would be nice of you to befriend her, she’s probably a lot nicer than Chelsea. I think you should stay away from Michael though, he seems unstable.”  
“Yeah, he does. Hey, have we talked enough for now, I’m really hungry?”  
“Yes, I think that will do for today. Here. Let me help you.” Carol knelt beside Lou in the beanbag, having her drink the antidote from a drink bottle filled mostly with water.  
“What happened to your face?” the teenager asked suddenly, taking a quick swipe at Carol’s makeup. Carol was startled, swatting away Lou’s hand, hard.   
“Don’t touch me.” Carol warned, gritting her teeth. Her Auburn hair swinging across the face messily.   
“Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot that you were real, I forgot to ask first… So, what happened? It looks like someone bit your face.”  
“You need to leave. Now.”  
“But I want to stay.”  
“LEAVE!” Carol yanked the teenager up by the hoodie, pushing her roughly towards the door. Lou stumbled but didn’t protest. It was the first time Carol had been physical with a student and the turn of effects shocked her. She shut and locked her door after putting the “Do not disturb” on her knob. She slowly slid down the back of the door until she was sitting on the floor, holding her hand over the scar on her face as if visited by a long-forgotten pain.   
After many minutes, she resumed her seat at her desk. Riffling through her Kate Spade burgundy handbag, Carol pulled out her makeup bag and began patching up the child’s mistake. Once the scar was less visible, she felt as though she could breathe deeply again. Carol was frustrated, she tapped the surface of Lou’s story, but like a crème brûlée; the most delicious part is underneath the burned top. As her frustration grew, she wanted to make sure she was still on track to execute her current octopus pantomime performance. She drew a large picture of an octopus into her notebook and began to flesh out each leg to where they were up to and what steps were to be taken next.   
The head: Revenge. Within the head she wrote her four players, each with their own reasons to commit murder. Chelsea Smith: the bored sixteen-year-old who has already spoken about undistinguished desires to kill someone for fun, or just to see if she could. She’s just dumped Michael and befriend a much older girl. She’d also been accused of poisoning Amy’s dogs and since the DNA evidence Carol planted points firmly at Chelsea, it is likely she will be convicted of something.   
Leg one and two were for who then why. Who was a simple task, she listed her main four players with the likely combinations that would result in murder:  
• Chelsea and Lou murdering Michael over the break up and him being a general sleaze. Mastermind would be Chelsea.  
• Chelsea murdering Michael over him seeking out Lou while they were still together.  
• Chelsea murdering Amy over the dog incident, baby incident and just general hatred.   
• Amy murdering Chelsea for the same reason, adding in the fact Chelsea stole Michael from her.   
• Amy and Michael murdering Chelsea over the treatment of herself and Michael, and if the baby turns out to be real, for the baby and how Chelsea made Amy suffer bullying.  
• Amy and Michael murdering Lou because she pursues Amy, and Michael get’s jealous, rekindles Amy’s relationship and together they kill Lou just to get rid of her.   
• Michael murdering Lou alone for the same reason as above.   
• Michael murdering Chelsea because of the breakup incident and him possibly being persuaded that Chelsea used Lou’s fake profile to catfish him.  
• Lou murdering Chelsea because she becomes annoying and won’t allow her to form a relationship with Amy.   
• Lou murdering Michael for the same reason as Chelsea.   
• Lou murdering Amy because of rejection. If Lou puts herself on the line to have a relationship with Amy and she rejects her, Carol theorised it would be enough for Lou to snap.   
In order of who most likely to die was then written into the second leg:  
• Chelsea – has reason to be murdered by all other players.   
• Michael – A target for mostly Amy and Chelsea. Less likely for Lou.  
• Amy – A target for mostly Chelsea and Michael. Less likely for Lou.   
• Lou – Most likely to be an assistant to crimes, rather than the target of them. It is likely that whoever dies that Lou would have a supporting role beside the murderer for one of the many reasons listed.  
Leg three: When (TBA)  
• A Friday night so that whoever died wouldn’t be reported missing till Monday.  
• After school midweek if they didn’t care about raising alarms early.   
• A weekend at one of their workplaces.   
• During the school holidays after some planning time with whoever was involved.   
Leg four: Where  
• Planning: Likely done during school time out of earshot of others, like in the locker room during lunch, or over text messages. Lou’s house would be a great place for the murderers to get together and plan. Facebook would take part in the conversation.   
• Planting the seeds of murder: Caroline’s office, or, at the hand of Carol and Megan using phone spoofing and the fact they have access to Chelsea’s Facebook.  
• Actual murder: Likely the stables, or the school yard. It would depend on who was chosen to die out of the group. They all have reason to go to the stables at one time or another. Brumby stables is also surrounded by remote bushlands which could hide a body or even the murder sight temporarily. If they did this, it would be easy for Carol and Megan to find in order to plant or evidence against the perpetrator to ensure their demise. It would be harder for Megan and Carol to watch if it took place in the bush, it would rule out voyeurism the security cameras that the stable would provide. The school would be very public and easily found which would make the police involved quickly, and it would be very easy to hide cameras or hijack them even if the kids disabled them prior to starting. It would also be easy to access the scene before anyone else. Any accidental trace evidence would be explained away by the fact that many people come and go. It would be a better place to watch and interact, but it was less likely to be picked by the teenagers, Carol thought.   
• A spontaneous public or private place. Carol couldn’t rule out that the event could happen at a random time unexpected; fuelled by things like rage, lust, overwhelming hate. There could be no way for Carol or Megan to truly rule it out, other than to persist with Carol’s interference with the mind and guidance into picking a place that they, the adults can control for maximum result.   
Leg Five is dedicated to the ‘what will happen?’ leg. What would happen would be that one or more would be dead, and that Carol and Megan would make sure the murderer would be prepared mentally, physically by way of supplies, and properly framed and arrested after Megan and Carol had, had their fun. Carol wrote a cheeky note about how she hoped to get some great, post-murder sex.   
Leg Six is for how the murders and plans would be executed. Carol sighed. She hadn’t gotten as far with leg six as she had expected. There were too many variants she needed to control before fleshing this out some more, and one of the things she was missing was a definitive way that each of the four involved would murder someone. She noted down that she needed to figure out each kid’s physical strength would be in order to choose a likely weapon or manoeuvre that they would use. She began writing a laundry list of what she needed to find out:  
• Physical strength – access PE records, watch students during sports day, study physical muscle mass (make her office warm so all those jumpers come off?), hand size (for some weapons), height, weight, and possible dead weight addition as bodies always feel heavier when they’re dead. How they would move the body(ies) is very important. If they body is too heavy, they’d need to break it down, so, they’d need the ideal tools, so they’d find the task more doable.  
Some known facts: Amy is petite, roughly a size eight, small framed, no visible muscle mass. Roughly 155cm tall, size 6 foot. Carol recalled from her observational notes from meetings with Amy. Chelsea: 160cm tall approximately, size 7-8 foot, never seen her without a jumper so cannot comment on size or muscle. Michael: men’s small build, muscular, athlete, good at most sports, foot is approximately a 9 or 10. He would be almost 180cm tall already. Lou: small framed, slender but strong, 165cm tall. Bilingual. Most other facts unknown.   
• Preferred murder method: will they be hands on, off, use weapons, firearms, what do these kids have access to in their home life? Drugs, alcohol, professional medications like horse sedatives, all of these needed to be narrowed down. Carol also added the notes of previous conversations under this dot-point, such as how poisoning, drowning, showers and wood-chippers had been missing in passing.   
Without Leg Six completed, Carol couldn’t fill out the remaining two; Leg Seven: The Event and, Leg Eight: The Aftermath. The event couldn’t be planned without a solid set of variants that Carol and Megan could provide and control. The Aftermath could be pencilled in with things like:  
• Arrests and court cases or sentences  
• Death  
• A possible promotion for Megan if she “solves the case”  
Carol scribbled in some detail around the octopus absentmindedly; a boat, mermaid and people drowning. She pondered how much longer she would need to gain the information missing from leg six? She neither felt behind in what she had done, nor content with how much has happened. She noted down in her appointment book that she needed to focus the students’ attention onto the sixth leg. Carol sipped at the remainder of her tea, tapping her pencil quietly against her desk. She then placed this plan in her locked storage drawer and wrote herself a reminder in her phone to take it home to Megan. Carol wanted Megan to be in a good mood when she received this plan, so that she would be impressed with Carol’s work and not angry that the final three legs were mostly absent of information. She decided that the best way to ensure Megan was in a good mood was to send provocative photos.  
For this, Carol drew her blinds and ensured once more that the door was firmly locked, she then took off her cream, silk blouse, and posed seductively across the woven rug she covered the carpet with. She took a few snaps, revealing more and more flesh each time. After her impromptu photoshoot was complete, she redressed and started sending them as a trickle to her lover.  
“My… to what do I owe this mid-afternoon treat?” Megan responded to Carol’s first picture. Carol sent a second “You’re making me hard…” Megan sent, Carol didn’t respond with words, but with a third picture of her completely topless “I want you right now, I want you to let me kiss all over those perky breasts of yours, I want to make you yell again like you did the other evening.”  
“Send me a photo.” Carol finally responded. Sitting on her armchair with her feet up on the coffee table.  
After a few short minutes, Carol was sent a photo of Megan’s bulging pants. Carol checked around to ensure that no one was near her office before unzipping her slacks and slipping her hand into her panties. She sent Megan another picture.  
“Hey, get that hand out of there, you’re not allowed to have fun without me, I want you to be deprived my Hell Bunny.” Megan sent, accompanied with a photo of her hand cupping her erect penis.   
“Well you aren’t here so I’m going to just have a little play.” Carol took another photo of her slacks around her ankles.   
“Don’t… save yourself, it’ll be better with the two of us, I promise.”  
“Well if I can’t get off you can’t.” Carol replied, sending a final photo of her zipping up her pants.   
“Alright, I promise.” Megan returned a similar photo.   
“I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.” Carol added.   
“I’ll enjoy flicking through your photos if I need a pick-me-up.”   
Carol smiled, feeling as though her plan had worked. She expected that her work would now be received well, hopefully followed by a wild romp with Megan.   
Carol arrived home to find Megan’s car already waiting. She parked behind her and entered the already-unlocked house.   
“My love, are you here?” She called, hanging up her jacket in the hall.   
“Bedroom.” Megan called back.   
“My, have you been waiting for me…?  
“Yes, actually. Come here.”   
Carol grinned, walking the twenty paces toward the bedroom, slowly removing her outer clothing. Once in the doorway; however, she wasn’t met with a happy, naked girlfriend, but one who was still in her work clothes standing angrily at the bedside with a vanilla folder in her hand.   
“What’s going on. I thought…?” She trialled off, watching Megan closely.   
“What do you think is in this folder, Caroline?” Megan met her gaze unblinkingly.   
“I don’t know. Why don’t you enlighten me?”  
“Well, this is a report that landed on my desk this evening, they found a part of an arm down south, washed up on the shore of Conningham beach.”  
“Oh, was it our friend?”  
“You can answer that.”  
“I don’t see how this is a problem, it is not like he had any fingers or anything?”  
“No, of course you wouldn’t. It’s fine that they found the arm, what isn’t fine, is that there seems to be some pieces of flesh that have been deliberately taken off the arm, like a trophy.”  
“Really? Show me.” Carol sat on the bed, still in just her underwear.  
“Here. Look at the photos. They know the victim, but they’re asking me if I think that these incisions were done by a killer, or if they are the result of animals. And I don’t know what to say Carol, did you have anything to do with this?” She pulled an eight-by-ten photograph of what remained of Timothy’s more-minced arm. There were more two small squares of flesh, about half the size of a postage stamp each.   
“This could be anything, I know nothing of this.” Carol said, returning the photo. It could be from rocks or getting hooked on whatever it was that brought it to the shore. Literally anything.”   
“Are you sure. Because you’ve started taking trophies, I need to know.” Megan remained calm, Carol sensed this was her interrogation attitude.   
“I don’t know anything, and I don’t take trophies. Now. If you can take off your police uniform both literally and metaphorically, I want to show you the plan I’ve been working on. There are a few bits and pieces I really need to nail, but I reckon I could have most of the plan in motion in a few weeks. All going smoothly.” Carol handed her the notebook she’d been keeping.   
“Right.” Megan was taken by pleasant surprise.  
“But if you don’t want to do it anymore because I’m suddenly a trophy hunter.”  
“No, I want to do it. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be a part of a plan that kills people, yet, I don’t have to get my hands dirty. It’s exciting, a new form of serial killing.”  
“Well. Not new, remember back to the time of Helter Skelter and Charles Manson, he was convicted without ever laying a hand on someone.” Carol said thoughtfully.   
“One of your favourites. I see a lot of you in him, and visa-versa.”  
“Yes, but my cult is less singing, worshipping and sex, and more just about planting the idea and letting it grow it’s only legs, take itself out to sea.”   
“I quite like the idea of you as a cult leader.” Megan said, softening and undressing.  
“I’m not in the mood anymore. Let’s just go to sleep.” Carol said bluntly.


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine  
Charles Manson and his cult of the Helter Skelter moment was one of Carol’s and Megan’s many morbid curiosities. He’s recorded in history as a man that completely brainwashed his subjects with drugs, sex and controlling every kind of information his members weer accessing. He was also the first person in American Law that had a conviction for murder, without actively being present for the murders. An inspiration to other murderers, a hand-free approach that many would use, and most would get away with. Megan loved books written on him, but Carol took a more analytical approach. She endorsed his methods but refused to call him a murderer because he’d never taken a life by his own hand. What exactly does he know about murder? He’s probably learned more inside the bars of prison than he ever did before.   
Megan preferred handsfree crime when she could take it, however; did enjoy ridding the world of scum in violent and interesting ways. A macabre deviancy, a fantasy of a comic-book style cop who takes the law into her own hands. Carol knew that the night with Timothy had made her feel more powerful, she could tell with the way Megan carried herself post-event. An air of inflated importance. Carol didn’t mind. She enjoyed stroking her lover’s ego as required. Happy spouse, happy house.   
Carol wanted Megan to teach her to be more dominate and commanding physically, but after the night with Timothy she’d become aware that it was against her nature. Carol was more of a passive person, enjoyed being told what to do, got off on being treated as an accomplice. She was the planner, the organiser, the ideas woman; but she was not a dominate and she probably would never be while in her marriage with Megan. This suited Carol, who liked being taken care of in a lot of respects. There was a certain amount of comfort she felt when Megan was in control of certain aspects of her life.   
Carol left for work early, annoyed at the argument with Megan the previous night. She’d hardly slept and decided to swing into McDonalds for a coffee and something to eat while she considered calling in sick and heading home after Megan left for work. Tentacle six didn’t allow her to think such thoughts for long, and soon she was seated in a booth towards the back of the restaurant pouring over her notes with a black coffee and hash-brown. She flicked through the day’s newspaper in her other hand. The Mercury was once a great paper, filled with worthy news items, Megan would say to Carol. The only way Carol ever remember the paper, even as a child, was that it was always filled with dribble. Scraps of stories around the country, followed by pages of adds. Hardly worth the few dollars to pay for it in paper. It’s online marketing strategy in the past few years has been to lure people to sign up for ‘member exclusive’ stories, which were sometimes nothing more than two-to-nine lines of a story. Carol started to give up on it, except three times a year, when the top ATAR scores were released for grade twelve, and, to read the university graduates twice yearly to see if any of her patients had made it. Today’s publication had nothing of interest.   
Carol reconcentrated her thoughts onto the plan. There was whole school sports day coming up, and Carol needed to be sure to see the girls and Lou in action in order to gage how physically strong and useful they would be in a time of murder. Of course, the adrenaline one feels when competing is different to that when you have just killed someone. The latter was intoxicating to every cell in the body, almost black-out worth. You brain is in fight, flight or freeze. Most people when faced with a great upset to their life or their wellbeing will fight; the adrenaline that comes with those thoughts is unlike anything you’ll experience outside of taking a life. Most people could kill if the time, place, and circumstances called for it, unfortunately for them, those that are unprepared will get caught.   
Megan had told Carol many cases over their courtship about perfectly good killers that stuff up and get themselves caught through lack of planning. Carol turned to a fresh page and started recounting some of the details that had undermined her would be idols – had they gotten away with it. The problem, Carol theorised, laid not with the execution of the murder but tentacle eight: the aftermath. Even if you kill someone spontaneously, its what you do next that is more important now that you’re the last-man-standing. Even if you haven’t had the opportunity to plan tentacles one-through-six, you can still make the kill a success at the eighth milestone.  
The first man she recalled had planned to kill his wife by electrocuting her in their kitchen. He partially planed one-through-six, however; what he forgot about was creating reasonable doubt that he was involved. If he couldn’t create that, he should have at least had a fall-guy lined up that could shed doubt on him being guilty. He meticulously botched the installation of the dishwasher, setting it up to send an electrical pulse through the water. A clever plan, but he was set up for at minimum a manslaughter charge because he installed it himself. He also was a qualified electrician, so he would know how to install it properly. What he should have done was to make a fault within the circuitry of the dishwasher, something that could be considered a manufacturing fault, instead of it being an installation fault. When he called for help, they told him to go turn the electricity off at the box, but he claimed he didn’t know how. That was probably his biggest mistake. He was home, he was the qualified electrician, and, he delayed aid to his wife. All of which meant that he was eventually slapped with a murder charge. Another fallen on his own sword, but thankfully a moral lesson for those aspiring to kill. Carol doodled a small cartoon of the scene across the page, chuckling into her Styrofoam and plastic cup.   
The second murder Carol recounted was slightly better, in fact, became a serial killer. He had meticulously planned every murder, making sure not to carry a signature or anything notable to connect them. He disposed of the body in such a way that they weren’t even found in the order he committed the crime. His downfall? Tentacles ‘how’ and ‘what’. He got stuck in his own trap. He was overconfident and under-prepared physically to take on the elaborate plan he had. What he wanted to achieve, was to set human-sized rabbit traps around a field, and then chase his victim through it until she was captured in one or more. Unfortunately, as he was setting them up, he grew tired of the great amount of force and weigh he needed to use in his body in order to even open the traps. One of them closed on his upper torso, almost severing his arm just below the shoulder, one of the metal teeth even cut into his neck, dangerously close to his aorta. He ended up having to call the emergency services on himself. Of course, under the duress of being in pain, given high-strength pain relief and being completely, physically exhausted, he began talking too candidly and loosely about what he was really doing in the field that night. Soon the cops were by his bedside pulling details for all four murders. This man was a testament to knowing your own abilities (or that of your toys, in Carol and Megan’s case), and, picking something within your limits. In the same way that Carol picked suffocation for the older woman, she needed to pick weapons or manoeuvres that could be achievable for a gang of teenagers.   
“I guess the only positive thing about these two getting caught is that they didn’t have to face the death penalty here in Australia,” She whispered to herself. Carol was very against the death penalty. The only thing that the death penalty achieves 100%, is that the one being executed will never kill again. Carol didn’t mind if killers got the penalty, there’s something poetic about a life for a life, however; given how high the rates are of being falsely imprisoned (particularly by those who work like she does) then it wouldn’t be fair to just take away their life. A shitty life in prison being innocent is better than a dead man, particularly in older age where, like Chelsea once told her, the healthcare and general care were better than most nursing homes. With a final gulp she finished her coffee, packed up her things and headed out to her car, contemplating whether to head to work or, drive to the airport and fly spontaneously to Melbourne “If only holidays truly paid the bills.” she said bitterly, pulling put of the parking lot and heading toward the school.   
It was too early for even the usual skater crowd to start their morning antis. The cleaners were there, and after making sure they knew she was onsite, she let herself into her office. Her goal before the students arrived was to have a series of subtle questions, she could ask them that sussed out their physical capabilities. She wasn’t so concerned about Michael, but Lou, Amy and Chelsea still had too many unknowns that could potentially lead to something being botched and pointing directly back to herself and Megan.   
Caroline took out her notebook once again, flicking to the next blank page. Carol liked working with pen and paper over computers. She believed there was something about starting a new book and watching the pages grow in thickness. Every touch of the pen or pencil etching a thought off the walls of your skull and preserving it for later. Memory isn’t an issue if you’re a good book-keeper. Memory would be what served her, she remembered how much Chelsea hated sport, so she could disguise her line of inquiry as being ‘helpful and showing Chelsea how she could participate in the school sports day’ in fact, she could use for all three students. Once her vison had a direction, Carol began to brainstorm loose questions; perfecting the language to mask her intentions.   
Her phone, which was rarely off silent-mode pinged beside her. It was Megan.   
“Hey, what time did you leave?”  
“Early.”  
“Well yes, if everything ok?”  
“No.”  
“Can we talk about it.”  
“No, I’m working.”  
“It’s… 6:35am?”  
“Yeah.’  
“What’s going on?”  
“You wanted all eight legs filled, we can’t fill seven and eight until I have finished six.”  
“Is this about last night?”  
“The fact you accused me of trophy keeping?” There was sting in her words “We agreed when we first started this process, that trophy keeping was a no, it was too easy to get caught and too hard to explain away. Why would I risk everything for two small squares of a rapist?”  
It took a what seemed like an eternity for Megan to reply “Alright, I was out of line, I’ll convince them that it was damage from the sea somehow. Take care today and most of all enjoy the work, this process is about ultimate pleasure, don’t take the anger from last night into the process, keep your mind clear and neutral. Get what we need. I’ll repay you tonight xoxox.”   
Carol didn’t bother replying, switching the profile to silent and tossing it across the room into her handbag “And have a merry-fuck-you. Dickhead.” Carol wanted to be angry, but she knew there was some truth in what Megan had said. Carol had been curious the day in the cold storage, prodding Timothy’s body with various thing, and eventually, taking a couple of sections of flesh to do experiments on later. She hid the flesh in old butter container and left it in cold storage. It wasn’t a trophy, but Megan wouldn’t understand that. Recounting her thoughts from that moment, there was a part of Carol that considered the flesh-stamps as a security blanket against Megan. If Megan was planning on selling Carol out at any point, she wanted to be prepared for retaliation. She trusted Megan, but this was their first killing streak together and they still needed to iron out the kinks in their new roles as murder curators. There was more to what Carol took. She also took the eyeballs of Timothy. Those she kept with her at the office in her desk drawer. Carol didn’t want to consider them a trophy, but a keepsake. There’s something pleasuring about knowing that she was one of the last images burned into someone’s retinas that she wanted to keep them in their physical form. Until Megan realised the eyes were missing (likely never) she would keep those as a closely guarded secret.   
Carol saw several patients that morning until recess time. Her last appointment before the break was for a grade-seven boy named Charlie, of who she expected was being terribly sexually abused by his father. The boy was small for his age, waif of frame and gaunt in face. He looked as though he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders every day. He was the youngest of two children, his older brother in the ninth grade was healthy, happy and seemingly didn’t have a care in the world. Charlie was intellectually disabled, and had not matured, Carol theorised, since the fourth grade. His family had regular interventions from the Department of Family Services since Charlie started in kindergarten, but unfortunately nothing had ever been found to give reason for the children to be removed from the home. Carol felt a deep sense of loathing toward both parents, as she suspected his mother knew of the abuse and may even take part. For many years people such as Carol, his classroom teachers, and social workers had encouraged Charlie to talk about what happens behind closed doors, however; they had to be extremely careful as to not be seen potentially ‘planting ideas’ into the child’s head.   
Charlie struggled with memory, he could barely remember his friend’s names, and struggled to place names to his peer group. It is because of this that Carol asked him to keep a secret journal at his house so that, with permission, they could go through it during their sessions. Charlie presented Carol his book and took a seat in the bean bag. Carol kept a many toy cars on the lower shelves of her bookcase so students like Charlie could fiddle and play with to keep them relaxed and feeling safe. Carol flicked through the entries from the time since their last appointment. Charlie struggled to write, but with literacy intervention sessions he had come leaps and bounds. In his diary, however; he stuck to crude drawings and few words. A drawing from the night before depicted a looming figure in a square towering over what seemed to be a pictorial representation of Charlie asleep in his bed. Carol was uncertain what the square represented.  
“Charlie, can you explain this picture?” Carol asked quietly.   
“Which one Carol?” He was the only student she allowed to call her by her first name, he once disclosed that doctors made him feel unsafe.  
“This one,” Carol turned the diary for Charlie to examine “Who’s that in the bed?”  
“Me.”  
“And who’s that standing over you?”  
“Mr. Cane.”  
“Who is Mr. Cane, Charlie?” She could see the thought lingering in his eyes. Today might finally be the day he says something she could use against his parents, something that would allow the horrendous crimes being committed against his body to stop.   
“He’s a man from the internet, Dad knows him.”  
“From the internet? Can you explain that for me, Charlie?”  
“He’s a man that calls Dad, then Dad asks me to talk to him.”  
“What do you talk about with Mr. Cane?”   
“He’s weird, he asks me all kinds of stuff.”  
“Can you give me an example?”  
“He says that, if I take my clothes off, I’ll make a lot of money for my family, and then I will have nice toys and things.”  
“What do you do when he says this?”   
“Well, Dad tells me to do what he says, so I do it,” Charlie rolled the blue Mazda MX5 model over his knees back and forth.  
“Do you take your clothes off?” Charlie nodded. It was worst than Carol feared. This child was being used to make exploitation material. Carol knew she had to get more details, even though it pained her, and she wished she could wash her ears from hearing it “What does Mr. Cane do when you do that, Charlie.”  
“He plays with his rude parts.”   
Carol signed deeply “Alright Charlie, that’s enough for now. May I keep this diary with me today? I want to admire your drawings, you’re a very good artist.”  
“Ok Carol.”  
“You can take the blue car with you, as a trade for the day.” Carol offered him a small smile, he returned it.  
“For real?” His face lit up like a Christmas Tree.  
“You know, you can even keep it, for being such a good boy in our appointment today. Go and have fun, it’s recess time.” Carol sent the boy out quickly and locked the door behind him. Carol knew she had to make a report about what Charlie had just told her, but more than anything, she wanted to enact her own revenge on this family, including “Mr. Cane” Carol’s fists were balled into her pockets as she paced before deciding to first report it to DCFS and then to the police, then even more specifically, her fiancée. Carol wanted another head to roll.   
Carol’s report to DCFS quickly put plans into motion, the woman on the other end assured Carol that the boys would not be returned home that night until a full investigation had happened. Carol then called the police and explained about the exploitation material that may be found at Charlie’s residence. Her third call was to Megan.   
“Caroline… I heard about what happened, I’m sorry you had to hear that, don’t worry yourself anymore, I have a whole team over there as we speak and they’re picking through everything they can lay their hands on, we’ll get them.”  
“I want them dead.”  
“I do too, my love”  
“How are we going to make sure that happens?”  
“Leave it with me, I have to go and do the legal side of everything first. Don’t worry, I’ll have a plan by this evening.”  
“I need them dead Megan, this little boy…” Carol’s voice began to break, tears rolled softly down her cheeks.  
“I know you care about him deeply. I’ll make sure that we can serve justice,” Megan whispered in an endearingly soft voice “I love you, you’ve done a world of good for that little boy today, and we will make sure than no one ever hurts him again.”  
“Promise?”  
“I promise, and you’ll be there to witness it.”  
“Promise again.”  
“I promise. Now I must go, this case is going to get hugely blown up by the media, and I need to make sure that whatever is said is accurate but with the least amount of information regarding the kids. I’ll see you tonight, it’s going to be a late one. I love you.”  
Megan hung up before Carol could return the sentiment. Carol was rattled, and spent recess calming her nerves with tea. Once the bell rang, she put on her working-face once more. She kept Wednesday middle blocks free for Chelsea to escape from PE. Chelsea practically slipped into her office.   
“Thanks for getting me out of PE.”  
“There’s a catch, you’ve got to at least pretend you’re going to take part in the school sports day. You have to answer these questions for Mr. Allen the sports teacher, then we can waste time till sport is over.”  
“Only if I get some tea.” Chelsea said cheerily, crossing her legs on the arm chair. Today she was wearing a brown teddy-bear-like coat, cream and brown leggings, and brown Ugg-boots. She smelled clean today, there was no lingering smell of unsanitary body either. Carol was pleasantly surprised.   
“Sure, but the questions first,” Carol took out a clipboard and sheet of paper with standardised questions she’d typed up that morning “There are five questions, question one is: what would you say is the sport you would be best at, out of those likely to be played at the sports day?”  
Chelsea pondered briefly before answering in a clear and decisive voice “Javelin. I’ve always liked it, shotput would be next, throwing things in general.”  
“So, you would say you had good aim and accuracy?”  
“Yes, I guess I would.”  
“Alright, out of sprinting, hurdles and the marathon races, what do you think you would succeed in?”  
“Well I’m not really good at running or jumping so I’ll go with sprinting, it’s over faster.”  
“That it is, I honestly don’t know why humans do hurdles, seems to me like the type of trick a dog or horse would do.” Carol tried to make the task more engaging. She also wanted desperately to stop thinking about Charlie.   
“You’re actually right, that’s so funny!” Chelsea giggled before miming a horse jumping over a hurdle, then a human doing the same.   
Carol couldn’t help but smile “Let’s try and focus now. Third question, would you ever consider joining a team sport or do you rather do sports alone?”   
“Alone mostly, but I don’t mind practicing with friends, like me and Lou have started jogging of a morning.”   
“If I’m understanding this correctly, you’re saying that you’d rather be in charge or doing the same activity with someone than working with that person as a team to achieve a goal? Is that what you mean?” Carol clarified, but also wanted more information.  
“Exactly. I mean if I was the capt’n or somethink I’d play, but I hate listening to others.” Carol hated that Chelsea substituted the word ‘thing’ with ‘think’ but she resisted the urge to correct it.   
“Alright second last question: out of high jump and long jump what are you more likely to take part in?”  
“Long jump, I can jump like across-ways not up and down.” She made gestures to emphasise what she meant.   
“Can you climb a tree or fence?”  
“Not really, unless the fence or tree had shoe sized places I could use for balance.”  
“What about going across monkey-bars?”  
“I can do that, why do you ask?”  
“I am just trying to get my head around your skills at across-wise things as you say, instead of up-and-down things.”  
“Oh ok, ha, I get it now.” Chelsea chuckled.   
“Lastly, how many kilograms can you comfortably lift?”  
“God, I don’t know when the last time I actively lifted something was.”  
“Can you pull yourself up onto like, monkey bars?”  
“I used to be able to?”  
“Do you reckon you could now?”  
“Probably?”  
“I guess I can write ‘can lift own body weight’ as your answer.”  
“What about you?” Chelsea tilted her head at Carol.  
“Me?” The question took Carol by slight surprise.   
“Yeah, why don’t you answer the questions?”   
“... because the session is about you, and the least I can do is hand this into the sport teacher for extra credit. I’m sure the kids are doing a similar session in class now.”  
“Yeah, but, I’m curious. I’ve been seeing you for how long now? I feel like I don’t actually know you as a human being.”  
“This is because we are not friends Chelsea, this relationship is about me helping you.”  
“I don’t understand how that isn’t a friendship, we even smoked together.”  
“You’re not my friend, and I am not yours. I’m sorry, that’s just not how it works,” Carol noticed Chelsea withdrawing slightly, hunching her body into a closed position “But since you are curious, I’ll tell you one thing: The only physical sport I like doing is swimming, otherwise I prefer things like horse riding, or car racing. Those kinds of things. I hate the feeling of being sweaty.” Carol said truthfully.   
“Can I ask another question?”  
“As long as you don’t expect an answer.”  
“What happened to your face? I know you have a scar on your jaw, and I have always been curious.”  
“You’ll have to keep being curious, that question is far too personal.”  
Chelsea sighed, but relaxed her body, returning to an upright sitting position “Fine, I always suspected dog bite for what it’s worth. A friend of mine owns a vicious dog and I have seen what it can do to people’s arms at least.”  
“Speaking of dogs, how is the case with Amy going.”  
“Fuck her.”  
“Not great then?” Carol waited.  
“I am being charged with trespassing, and animal cruelty. My lawyer got me a deal that I could do 100 hours community service and my record be sealed after it’s completion so that it won’t have any impact on me getting work in the future.”  
“Where are they making you do community service?”  
“Roadside conservation up on the mountain, picking up rubbish before the tourist season starts, planting native trees. I’ll be mistaken for a Green Peace hippy.” Chelsea sounded disgusted and almost like she was gagging.  
“Green Peace actually do a lot of good for the world, you might like to use this opportunity to learn something? You might be surprised.”  
“The only thing I like about this whole situation is that I might find some animal bones, even skulls, as I am digging in the undergrowth for rubbish.”  
“You like those things?”  
“Yeah, I like cleaning them up and displaying them.”  
“So, you’re still continuing your morbid curiosities then?” Carol reached behind her and turned on her head and turned on the jug.   
“Yeah, I am. I’ve got some new ideas on how to murder someone if you want to hear how someone, not me because that would be reportable on me if I said that, might get rid of someone?”  
“Well we have half-an-hour left of our session so why not, if we have nothing else to talk about?” Carol had hoped this would happen, that Chelsea would freely start talking about her desires. Her doing so served two purposes; the first of which would be evidence against her after the Octopus was completed, and the second, which was most important; to feed into tentacle seven.  
“Okay,” Chelsea clapped her hand rubbed them together theatrically “Ya ‘no’ how the biggest problem with murder is that you have this great mound of flesh afterward. And ya must get rid of it, or ya get caught right?”  
“Theoretically, yes.”  
“The body is a massive problem. Graves don’t hide them; the only real way is to reduce it something else.”  
“Like what, Chelsea?”  
“Like, ashes. I mean even the church uses aches, you ‘no’ the whole Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” We all get to be dust eventually, why not speed it up the progress?”  
“I can see you’ve put a lot of thought into this, anything else you would like to tell, considering I can’t ask you how you would make that happen?”  
Chelsea grinned “Theoretically you just need fire, right?”  
“I don’t think it’s quite that simple,” Carol said with a tinge of bitterness “Bodies after all, are really wet.”  
“Alright, what about a really hot fire? For a longer time?” Carol gave her a look that permitted Chelsea to continue “So a really hot fire, for a really long time.”  
“Seems difficult to do outside of a crematorium.” Carol quipped, hoping that Chelsea had put a little more thought into it. She poured the cups of tea, passing the sugar cubes carefully to Chelsea. She put her usually two in the cup and stirred before taking two long gulps.   
“How hot do you think it would need to be to burn a body?”  
“I am unsure, have you got your phone on you? Google it, I’m curious.” Carol wrote some notes while the child searched for answers online. She was thrilled, this was the first solid information that a student had given her that pointed toward their darkest desires.   
“It says here that to burn a body to ashes, you need a fire about 800 – 1100 degrees centigrade. That’s hot, isn’t it.”  
“Very hot, the difference between night and day on Mars hot.


	9. Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Carol and Megan both attended the funeral of Charlie’s parents in their separate capacities Megan to put a positive police front on their murders, the image of “We will avenge your love ones” and all things official. Carol went to support Charlie and his older brother Jonas.   
Earlier that week the kids had both returned to the school now in the care of their loving Grandparents. Noah looked well-fed, healthy and clean. As he walked into the funeral home while holding his Pa’s hand, he looked confident and even excited.   
His Mother was too disfigured by her murdered and had her casket closed, while the father was recognisable with clothes to cover the damage left behind. Both kids and Grandparents walked to the Mother’s coffin first, taking around a minute to say their goodbyes. Then, upon walking to the Father’s casket, something unexpected came from Charlie. The boy took his hand away from his Pop’s and firmly punched his father’s corpse in the penis while shouting “I BET YOU DON’T LIKE HOW MUCH THAT HURTS, WELL I DIDN’T LIKE IT EITHER!”   
Carol quickly moved to the front and offered to take him for a walk while the rest of the funeral took place. The Grandparents agreed, and Carol carefully led Charlie away from the group and into the garden out front of the Funeral home. The Funeral home was located on a busy street, next to a soccer field and large apartment complex. The complex was formally known as Stainforth Court, a low income, Le Corbusier piece of architecture. Le Corbusier’s design was part of a movement that thought things like housing and needs could be utilitarian, therefore giving a cookie-cutter, streamline, modernist house that is the same as everyone’s. Unfortunately, the four-tower complex, like that of its predecessor Unite d’Habitation in France during the 1950s; Stainforth court fell into disrepute, attacking red-light crime, drugs, and even murder. Carol stood with Charlie admiring buildings and finding them pleasing to the eye.   
Charlie followed her gaze “Jonas says that Mum and Dad probably died over there.” He said clearly.   
“Oh yeah? What makes him think that?”  
“Says that there was a murder that happened over there.”  
“He’s not wrong, did he tell you much about it?”  
“He said he Googled it because we almost got a house there with Mum and Dad.”  
“What did he say he found?”  
“A drunk person in 2011 beat up a guy and another one died.”   
“Did Jonas tell your parents?”  
“Yeah then they turned down the apartment, because it was the VERY one that the murder happened in. I was sad, I like ghosts. Ghosts are some of my best friends.”  
Carol looked down at the kid “Are they?”  
Charlie nodded “Only good people come back as ghosts to be friends with me.”  
“Are there good and bad ghosts?”  
“Of course, bad ghosts are the ones that go BOO! Good ones stay around and talk to me.”  
“Must be nice to talk to them, how about you talk to me, a real person today?”  
“Will you buy me an ice-cream at the servo if I do?”  
“Sure, let’s walk over.” Carol crossed the road to the service station together with Charlie who happily skipped beside her.   
“Can I have a rainbow Paddle-Pop?” Carol nodded as they made their way to the small chest freezer, selecting the paddle-pop for him. Together they paid and sat on the bench outside to snack. Carol sipped on at diet Pepsi while watching the smear of blue and pink Paddle-Pop slowly engulf Charlie’s face.”  
“I’m glad they’re dead. My parents.” He said with a bird-like cheer.   
“What does that feel like?”  
“Grandma called it release.”  
“Do you mean, relief?”  
“Yeah, that’s the word. It’s like taking out the smelly trash, sure you liked some of the stuff in the bag but now it’s smelly and not the same. So, you give it to the garbage man instead. And then your house smells better and you think about how you should have done that sooner because life is so much better.” Carol smiled at him, it was one of the most extensive and coherent sentences that she had heard from Charlie, and he genuinely seemed to understand its contents.   
“You don’t have to worry about your father now.”  
Charlie agreed “He can’t hurt us anymore. He got what he deserved.”   
“I agree with you Charlie. You’re making sure you keep telling people what happened, don’t ever be ashamed, they need to know so they can help you. I’m glad you’re back at school so I can see you again. You’re one of my favourite patients.”   
“You’re a good person, Carol.”   
“So are you Charlie,” Charlie suddenly grabbed into her for an endearing hug. Carol patted him on the back in the same way a heart beats, knowing that her blouse and jacket would now need dry cleaning “Ok, now, let’s go watch some soccer and then go back for the morning tea at the funeral home.”  
“I hope they have cake.”  
“Cake and ice-cream in one day?” Caroline questioned.   
“I’m celebrating my birthday.”  
“It’s not your birthday…?”   
“It is now. Now I’m New Charlie.”   
“Ok New Charlie, because it’s your birthday, I won’t tell anyone about your ice-cream snack, so now you can have cake as well.”  
“You’re the best person every Carol. Now come on!” He yanked Carol by the hand back across to the soccer fields so they could watch the final quarter before returning to the funeral home in time for the reception. The local media was beginning to gather outside to snap photos of those who attended.   
Carol quickly snuck Charlie in before he was seen, slipping him into the bathroom to wash his face before facing the crowd. Megan saw her arrive and walked over.   
“How’s the kid?”   
“He’s ok, I think he’ll get through this trauma. I think that was him closing the chapter. He’s just freshening up and getting ready to face people out there. How was the service.”  
“Brief, a lot of people are talking about the kid.”   
“Good, maybe they’ll wake up before it happens to another loved one. If they’d taken any notice of the kids before they’d have known that this was happening long before two bodies were put into boxes.”  
“I agree babe. Here, got you an orange juice, this is the driest funeral I’ve ever had the misfortune to attend.” Megan passed her a large, ice cold glass of orange juice.   
“How are the snacks?”  
“Nothing worth eating, standard school canteen shit.”  
“Canteen in your day or mine?” Carol asked cheekily, bringing a smile to Megan’s face.   
“Very funny madame, I was going to take you to get something nice for lunch but after that comment, I might just drop you off at work again without nothing but an apple.”  
“But I’ll faint from hunger and you’ll have to look after me.” Carol joked.   
“Alright, we can get something like sushi on the way back to the school, can’t have you going hungry.”  
“No, I have so much to do.”  
“And you’re luck you’re cute, especially in all black.”  
“And you with your shiny badge and nicely pressed uniform. Very sexy.”   
“Is it wrong to sweet talk at a funeral?”  
“You’d be surprised how funerals make people want sex, there’s probably a lot of Viagra being popped at this minute for after the drive home.” Carol surveyed the crowd of mostly over forties.   
“I guess death brings together everyone, in an individual sense.”   
“Hmm, and then maybe we are not so differently wired, if we enjoy… well, you know.” Carol smirked at Megan as they watched the caskets being loaded into the cars to be taken to their graves at Cornelian Bay cemetery.   
“Do you want to watch them get buried or do you want to head to get food and go back to work?”  
“Yeah, that, just let me make sure Charlie is ok,” Carol looked around and found Charlie happily chatting with newly found family members “He’s ok, I’ll see him at school, I think his life is looking up.”  
“That means two dreams have come true. He’s got a loving family that he always wanted and needed, and we got to perfect our skills.”  
“A third would be that we don’t have another mill of child exploitation material surfacing. Not kids will be harmed at the hands of those two monsters.”  
“Good work on us then.”  
“Good work on us.” Carol repeated as they got into Megan’s patrol car.  
“Still hungry?”  
“I think I’ll be ok actually. I feel some thoughts coming on I need to prepare for. Thoughts about our trio. I’ve had some more ideas on the physical set up.”   
“I’ll get you a takeaway from Zambreo’s then, you can put that in the fridge at work in case you stay late.”  
“I expect to stay late tonight, what about you?”  
“Late, but only because I have to go to my doctor and get my hormone scripts.”  
“Alright, just don’t forget to fill them, you’re almost out, and you get all moody if you accidentally skip a dose. It’s like you’re on your period.”  
“I am nothing like a period, that’s the one thing I’ll never experience thankfully. You’re like a completely different person on your period.”  
“Am I?”  
“Are you ever, you cried at a cat meme last month. And because the Indian food I brought home for you tasted so good and you could only give the take-away five stars out of five and you felt they were more like a nine-out-of-ten sort-of place.” Megan chucked as they pulled into the drive through.  
“Well four and five-out-of-five are completely different fractional values than nine-out-of-ten.” Carol reiterated.   
“Oh, I agree with you, a much fairer valuing system, however; not reason to sob while eating Indian food and watching the Jack the Ripper series on Netflix. It was funny, I had to try so hard not to laugh at you because I thought you could turn murderous at any given moment.”  
“I couldn’t murder you. I like your dick too - ” Carol was cut off.   
“Welcome to Zamberos Moonah can I take your order, please?” A young sounding, female voice said.   
“Hi, yeah I would like a chicken chipotle with extra green-leaf salad, brown rice, but no beans. Have you got diet coke?”  
“Yes, in a 250ml bottle.”  
“One of those please, and my fiancée is still deciding.” Megan smirked at Carol, hoping that the attendant had heard the later part of their conversation, Carol turned a shade of pink.  
“Yep, that’s ok, I can wait” The attendant assured.   
“I’ll also get a chicken chipotle, white rice, all the trimmings and extra avocado.” Carol said shyly.   
“Any drinks with that one?”  
“A coffee with two sugars please.”  
“Not a problem, that’s $25.95 just drive through to the second window please.”  
Carol sunk slightly in her chair and tried to look out the window and hide her face while Megan paid for their food. Megan continued to take pleasure in Carol’s embarrassment until they were back onto the main road which then allowed her to roar with hearty laughter. Carol enjoyed seeing Megan so joyous even if it was at her own expense.   
“So, you were saying that you couldn’t kill me because you like my dick too…” Megan tried to ask seriously.   
“Well, I think I am reconsidering my position on that statement I think,” She added smiling “We can never eat there again, or at least, you alone are doing the drive-thru runs.”   
“I still want you to explain what you were going to explain about my dick.”  
“I like your dick too much to kill you, but I’m not so against sedating you, taking a cast of it, and making my own vibrator of it, so I can use without you, and you can go for a swim with Timothy.”   
“Oooooooohhhh,” Megan teased “You’re threatening to make me sleep with the fishes.”  
“What’s put you in such a great mood?” Carol tilted her head curiously.  
“I just enjoyed seeing the positive results of what we’ve been doing,” Megan gave Carol a warning look, gesturing to a speaker that doubled as a listening device if the Police need evidence that was confessed to in the car trips between arrest and incarceration.  
“Oh,” Carol said quietly, thinking for a moment “Well, it’ll be a nice feeling when I can see Charlie’s mental health and you can catch his parent’s killer.”  
“Exactly, but at least he’s free of the monsters for now.”  
“And he’ll be equipped to deal with them in the future. He’ll have like a sixth sense for abuse victims alike. I hope he grows a little more developmentally, otherwise when his Grandparents are old and dying, life will be hard for him and he may end up in the care of a resentful older brother.”   
“Why do you say resentful?”  
“Well, it’s not like he wants to have to look after his baby brother in adult life, not long term at least, and if Charlie hasn’t reached a maturity where he’s allowed independent living…”  
“Look let me butt in here, can we just focus on the little good we’ve done? Just don’t kill my buzz ok?”  
“Alright, I’m sorry, thanks for lunch, you’re right, I’ll stop being a glass-half-empty.”  
“I have to follow up on what the kid said at the funeral, it’ll go into the case confirming their maltreatment, not that it will matter, but if they move and have to transfer schools it will be useful for putting on his file so he can continue getting help and support.”  
“Yeah, I’m also going to put all under his student support system file, for the same reason. Only the psych at his new school or if I refer him will be able to access it, other than certain other, relevant staff.”   
“I wonder what our triple ‘s’ file would have said if we had, had one?” Megan asked curiously.   
“I’ll text it to you because this is my stop.” Megan pulled the car into the school’s lot and turned off the engine.   
“Kiss goodbye.”   
Carol kissed her passionately “I love you, I’ll text you, thanks for the food, have a good rest of your day. Hey, can you turn the lights on and sirens as you leave just for fun? I love watching the cars go slower on the Brooker when they spot you come here. It’s a fascinating human quirk.”  
“A quirk?”  
“Well if they’re not guilty of anything they don’t have anything hide, so why adjust your behaviour. If you’re not doing anything, you shouldn’t worry, it’s suspicious if you ask me, I often wonder why they slow down.”  
“Now you have me curious, I’m going to pay more attention, so yeah I will, just to test your theory.” Megan flicked her lights and sirens on before easily merging traffic with a newly-slowed highway, Carol gave a satisfied smile. Heading into work she was confronted by Principal Kent Jones in a strange, monotone hounds-tooth suit with mustard-yellow polo shirt ensemble. He was red faced, and his moustache twitched.   
“You’re late.”  
“I had the funeral to go to, in support of Charlie’s Family, I cleared my schedule because of, and I’ll be logging it as three hours leave without pay, so don’t worry.”  
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”  
“About?”  
“Can we talk privately?”  
“Of course, you’re afforded the same services as the students, let’s step into my office.” Carol gestured down the hallway with her silver-wrapped chipotle.   
“Good, thank you.” It was rare for Jones to use manners. He waddled behind her, heaving his beer gut with heavy-healed steps to her office.   
“Come in, I’ll make you a drink.” She reached over and tapped the jug before turning on the lights. She didn’t open the blinds for privacy sakes.   
“Let me get this straight though, if I confess to doing something, you can’t do anything, but if I’m planning to hurt someone, you’re legally obligated to try and stop me. Right?”   
“There are some exceptions, like if children are involved in something beyond the normal adult-child relationship, but in general, yes, that’s how my job works. Whatever is the matter Jones you look like a wreck?” Carol sat in her armchair and looked fake concerned. She was genuinely interested in what he was going to say, but she didn’t care for his feelings.   
“Right, fuck, ok, well, I’mma sit down,” He manoeuvred his large rump into the sagging chair “You know Facebook, right?”   
“Of course, practically everyone has an account. What’s the matter with Facebook?” Carol opened a new file and started to take notes.   
“Well it’s not Facebook that’s the problem, it’s a person on Facebook.”   
“Ok, tell me as much or as little as you want to. I’m not here to judge.”   
“Well, me and my wife, we’re old right? So, she doesn’t like to… er… do the dirty with me very often, but I’m still… I still want to, and I’m not satisfied. I feel down the rabbit hole one night and after wanking off to a bit of… content, I got a friend request on Facebook from a cute girl, said she was 19, from Sydney, she saw my profile and she claimed it was a real turn on. Well I got drunk off that kind of shit, and before you know it, I’m sending pictures and cash to her in return for other pictures. I didn’t think anything of it, just a little bit of… content for me to get off on when my wife isn’t putting out. Anyway, long story short. Someone put this under my door this morning.” He took from his inside pocket a folded piece of paper, carefully handing it to Carol.   
Carol unfolded the letter, and what it seemed to be was screen captures of the explicit camming Jones had taken part with this girl. The letter was a bunch of pictures and then finally a statement which said “How would you like to know that this girl, Yumio_98 is actually a 17-year-old child from your school, Mr. Jones. You have until 4pm tomorrow to get together five thousand dollars of washed money, you’ll leave it in your office, and you’ll go home early. Leave the office unlocked. Failure to do so will result on mass distribution of our findings to the community. We will also post this online on the front page of the school internet. Once we have the money, you will receive contact and we will cease our campaign. Your wife is on our email chain, how would she feel knowing that you’re cheating on her with a student? Choose carefully Kent Jones.”  
“You’ve had a wormer in your system it seems.”  
“Wormer, what’s a wormer?”   
“It’s an old-school term or hacker. Err, content sites often have spyware and viruses encrypted into their videos so that when you download them, you’re activating the lines of code which can access your computer, files and all. In this case they hacked your webcam and took screenshots. Clever, actually.”  
“CLEVER?! ARE YOU FOR REAL DOC-HEAD?! How am I meant to find five grand in a little over twenty-four-hours to pay off this person.”  
“You’re really going to pay?”  
“Well I have to, this could destroy my life. If I go to police and say someone is blackmailing me, they’re gonna want to know everything, and that’ll destroy my life too.”  
Carol sighed and faked being contemplative “Has your wife got any valuable purses or jewellery that you could sell for cash quickly, what about your car, you could say rode your car off, the tow company already came to collect it, and then you could get a new car on finance. You wife could never know.”   
“Sell my car?!” He looked as though his head was erupting.   
“Well, I am trying to help you find a solution. Are we even certain that this is the actual student? I mean, forgive me if this sound racist, but; could the person have mistaken the screen Asian for the student? I mean, this really could be anyone.”  
“There’s a tattoo, they sent me a message of the student’s tattoo vs. the one on the screen, it matches. I feel like a group targeted me. I mean what’s she even doing online.”  
“I can’t theorise on that. Most students do have an online presence, and, given the decline of quality sex education, a lot of the way students act sexually is based on what they see in... err… content, and what they hear from their friends and family. If sexualised activity was normalised in their upbringing, this student may likely think that this is a normal behaviour.”  
“You think their family could be involved.”  
“Look at Charlie’s parents and what they did, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a ring in this school that we’ve stumbled upon. I don’t like to think about it much, I can only go off what students choose to tell me and report from there. I think it could be a family, it could be a pimp, there’s no way of knowing.”  
“Can you pull this kid in, and talk to her? Ask her if she’s doing this.”  
“I can’t do that Kent, that’s coercion. That’s implanting the idea, that’s not my job. I can only talk about what they bring up and how it makes them feel, I can’t spontaneously ask ‘Hey, did you masturbate on a webcam with the principal of the school? Are you extorting money?’ what do you honestly expect me to say?”  
“I expect you to do your fucking job. I’m being pinned as a predator. Fuck. My life is over. How was I supposed to know that she was 17, not 19, I mean look at her, how?”  
“The users of the internet have the responsibility to know the content that they’re look for, and how to access it safely. Like sure porn is legal if it’s consensual and depicting just adult humans. If you stuck to that, maybe searched for it, you wouldn’t be in this situation, but at some point, while you were down your rabbit hole, you actively found this stuff, and engaged with it. It’s not like you just stumbled upon it, or you got redirected to it, you added this girl on skype from just having met her on Facebook and no questions asked, you got your dick out for her. If you ask me, if you don’t have anything to hide, and you’re confident this girl is not the student from the school then you should be confident enough to march into the police station and make a report of revenge porn, cyber stalking and blackmailing. If you think you have something that you need to hide, the maybe you deserve what’s happening. Pay up or go to the police, I can’t tell you what to do.” Carol wrote a few more notes, she then watched as Kent paced. While he wasn’t directly watching her, she swapped the letters he had given her, with folded plain printer paper. She needed this for reasons she did not yet know. Kent continued pacing.   
“Fuck it, I’ll sell the car, quick give me back those pictures,” Carol gave him the blank paper. As expected, he tucked it into the inside of his jacket without looking at it again “Pretend this conversation never happened Doc, and if you tell anyone, I’ll make your life really hard.”  
“Ok Kent, good luck, shut the door on your way out, I have to prepare for afternoon sessions. With students. Goodbye.” Kent slammed the door loudly, it shook the wall slightly. Carol was bemused by the interaction and smiled about it over a fresh coffee. She then logged into Chelsea’s account to see if her and Lou were in on this plan.   
As expected, the girls had plotted to exploit the principal for money.   
“I can see he went and saw the doctor, he looks furious, I guess he might have asked her for advice on what to do about it, she can’t tell anyone unless she can prove he had a plan. I wonder what she’s going to do.” Chelsea messaged to Lou.   
“Who cares, this is going to be an awesome shit storm, whatever happens, money or not, I hope we get rid of him.”  
“Any principal has to be better than this one. He’s a cockwobble.”   
“I can’t believe he fell for it.” Lou messaged “I mean, all we did was photoshop my tattoo into the screen grabs we took, and Bob’s your uncle, Fanny’s your aunt, he thinks it’s me? White middle-aged men are so racist.  
“I’m just thankful we didn’t have to cam with him to make this happen, we could both be charged with distribution.”  
“I guess we are lucky that he’s a racist that thinks we all look the same.”  
“I mean it is true, in the sense that you all look like you in your twenties, until you’re eighty, and then all of a sudden you’re Sophie the Grandmother from Howl’s Moving Castle.”  
“Accurate, only instead of a sweet, innocent old lady, I’m going to be a goth that throws bat toys at visitors until they leave and come out with inappropriate sex stories at the Christmas table. Just to make people squirm.” Lou sent many emojis.   
“Hahahaha I hope I live to see that. That would be fantastic. I hope to live to an old enough age where a television news crew interviews me on my birthday because they always ask the ‘and what’s the secret to your long life?’ and I am going to full on tell them that I eat a pound of bacon, smoke weed, masturbate as much as possible every day, just to watch his face drop and see what they end up actually cropping the footage to.”   
“Probably just a pound of bacon, you should list as many inappropriate things as you can at them, so they have to pick the lesser of both evils. Oh, oh, oh, and if they misquote you online, share it to whatever the Facebook is of the future and correct them by typing up all of the content you told them, force them to release a tape of it, cause uproar and media censorship.”  
“Great idea Lou. Alright, I’ll keep an eye on Jonesy-boy, see if he brings up the coin.”  
“Well it’ll either be that or the cops.”  
“Still interesting either way.”  
“Well, I want the money personally, we could flee to somewhere awesome, like the remote northern territory, and pretend we’re from New Zealand, make a fresh start.”  
“Personally, I want to see how much weed you can smoke using five grand. I bet it will be like, a five-week white-out.”  
“What’s a white-out?”  
“Well you’ve heard of black-out drunk, well it’s like that, but being ‘too high’ and you’re in an almost unconscious daze. It’s amazing, it’s like you’re floating on smoke.”   
“Well I should hope you could get white-out level high for 5k.”   
“Or we could buy some Gucci?”   
“I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens, see you at recess.” Megan signed off. Lou shortly after.   
Carol was almost proud of how ambitious the girls’ plan for money had been, and she was glad to read that they’d only photoshopped a porn-star instead of creating their own. Eventually the police would find it’s fake, however; there would still be a stigma that attaches themselves to males accused of sexual misconduct: always guilty to be proved as innocent, which is the complete opposite to how the law is designed. Carol believed that sexual crime was wholeheartedly worse than murder. Murder is final, there’s an end. There isn’t an end for survivors of sexual assault, not until the day they die. She wished that sexual crimes received the same, if not more penalties and jail time than murder.   
Cybercrime receives higher sentencing than both murder and sexual assault which is insulting, because a virtual assault such as: stealing money or bitcoin, stealing a photo, posting a rude mean, making some online hate are all things that can be avoided and solved by disconnecting. No one is physically hurt. It also seemed to Carol that cyber-crime such as hacking government websites, or online sit-ins are so frightening to the older generations that don’t understand the newer technology, that they just want criminals guilty of not using a computer correctly, put away for as long as possible. Murder is sensationalised, rape is ignored and the victims’ faults, while getting into a virtual place you don’t have the right to access? How dare you, worst crime ever.   
“In a way,” Carol said to herself “The internet is like the Unite d’Habitation; the government wants to standardise it, make it safe and the same for everyone. But happiness isn’t universally the same, needs and desires are either, and soon people get bored and start straying outside the apartment block and soon they’re neck deep in the web accessing stuff that they get off on, but never expected to find. We are all rats in the project, learning to press buttons for rewards, and when the high wears off about what we have been searching, we start looking for more intense pleasures.” Carol decided to send a message about the situation to Megan, Carol explained both perspectives of what is going on, Lou and Chelsea’s as well as Kent Jones.   
“Kenty is in trouble then, looks like I can seize his computers to find out.”  
“What about the girls, they shouldn’t get into trouble. It’ll ruin our plan.”  
“That’s easy, I’ll just delete the meta data from what they have been posting, that way it could have been bounced around the world before landing in Kent Jones’s lap.”  
“Good, I want everyone to doubt Kenty. I want him pinned as part of the reason why a kid dies soon.”  
“I know, and this is great ground work being put in place. You should report him anonymously to I.T and H.R see if they can’t get access to his personal search logs and contact logs from work.   
“Right, and after my next session with Lou, I’ll get her to confirm the picture isn’t off her and I’ll try and frame Michael as posting the picture. Or Amy, I’m sure the photo they used to merge with the screen-shots has already been passed around a few people of her age group. Just finding who has a copy will be the important part. I’ll check Chelsea first and work my way around. You bring down Kent to an appropriate level, but don’t arrest him, he needs to be around to see his drama unfold. He can be suspended from work or whatever, that’d be HR’s call.”  
“This is great, I can feel it brewing like a storm.”  
“It’s going be a perfect storm. Alright, love you, buy, work to do.”  
“Same, love you too.”   
Carol decided to call crime stoppers from the spoofed number belonging to Chelsea. She reported that her friend was supposedly seeing a way older guy and he was paying her to take her clothes off. Carol was a natural mimic, finding it easy to emulate younger sounding voices and accents. Carol told them that she had a print out of screenshots between them and they directed her to send a copy of it to the police. Carol agreed and hung up the phone.   
Shortly after the conversation, uniformed police were on Campus arresting Mr. Jones. As he was walked across the parking lot in cuffs, the entire student body recorded his demise with their phones. Carol watched from the comfort of her office window, smugly sipping from the coffee Megan bought her. The little fat man looked as though he was turning into a dried tomato. The school press surrounded the car, taking pictures of its every angle, many, Carol guessed, would be sending it to major news outlets by social media platforms, or simply going Live directly to their feeds. Either way, world-wide in less than an hour, she predicted. It was a beautiful slaughter.


	10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Carol and Megan both attended the funeral of Charlie’s parents in their separate capacities Megan to put a positive police front on their murders, the image of “We will avenge your love ones” and all things official. Carol went to support Charlie and his older brother Jonas.   
Earlier that week the kids had both returned to the school now in the care of their loving Grandparents. Noah looked well-fed, healthy and clean. As he walked into the funeral home while holding his Pa’s hand, he looked confident and even excited.   
His Mother was too disfigured by her murdered and had her casket closed, while the father was recognisable with clothes to cover the damage left behind. Both kids and Grandparents walked to the Mother’s coffin first, taking around a minute to say their goodbyes. Then, upon walking to the Father’s casket, something unexpected came from Charlie. The boy took his hand away from his Pop’s and firmly punched his father’s corpse in the penis while shouting “I BET YOU DON’T LIKE HOW MUCH THAT HURTS, WELL I DIDN’T LIKE IT EITHER!”   
Carol quickly moved to the front and offered to take him for a walk while the rest of the funeral took place. The Grandparents agreed, and Carol carefully led Charlie away from the group and into the garden out front of the Funeral home. The Funeral home was located on a busy street, next to a soccer field and large apartment complex. The complex was formally known as Stainforth Court, a low income, Le Corbusier piece of architecture. Le Corbusier’s design was part of a movement that thought things like housing and needs could be utilitarian, therefore giving a cookie-cutter, streamline, modernist house that is the same as everyone’s. Unfortunately, the four-tower complex, like that of its predecessor Unite d’Habitation in France during the 1950s; Stainforth court fell into disrepute, attacking red-light crime, drugs, and even murder. Carol stood with Charlie admiring buildings and finding them pleasing to the eye.   
Charlie followed her gaze “Jonas says that Mum and Dad probably died over there.” He said clearly.   
“Oh yeah? What makes him think that?”  
“Says that there was a murder that happened over there.”  
“He’s not wrong, did he tell you much about it?”  
“He said he Googled it because we almost got a house there with Mum and Dad.”  
“What did he say he found?”  
“A drunk person in 2011 beat up a guy and another one died.”   
“Did Jonas tell your parents?”  
“Yeah then they turned down the apartment, because it was the VERY one that the murder happened in. I was sad, I like ghosts. Ghosts are some of my best friends.”  
Carol looked down at the kid “Are they?”  
Charlie nodded “Only good people come back as ghosts to be friends with me.”  
“Are there good and bad ghosts?”  
“Of course, bad ghosts are the ones that go BOO! Good ones stay around and talk to me.”  
“Must be nice to talk to them, how about you talk to me, a real person today?”  
“Will you buy me an ice-cream at the servo if I do?”  
“Sure, let’s walk over.” Carol crossed the road to the service station together with Charlie who happily skipped beside her.   
“Can I have a rainbow Paddle-Pop?” Carol nodded as they made their way to the small chest freezer, selecting the paddle-pop for him. Together they paid and sat on the bench outside to snack. Carol sipped on at diet Pepsi while watching the smear of blue and pink Paddle-Pop slowly engulf Charlie’s face.”  
“I’m glad they’re dead. My parents.” He said with a bird-like cheer.   
“What does that feel like?”  
“Grandma called it release.”  
“Do you mean, relief?”  
“Yeah, that’s the word. It’s like taking out the smelly trash, sure you liked some of the stuff in the bag but now it’s smelly and not the same. So, you give it to the garbage man instead. And then your house smells better and you think about how you should have done that sooner because life is so much better.” Carol smiled at him, it was one of the most extensive and coherent sentences that she had heard from Charlie, and he genuinely seemed to understand its contents.   
“You don’t have to worry about your father now.”  
Charlie agreed “He can’t hurt us anymore. He got what he deserved.”   
“I agree with you Charlie. You’re making sure you keep telling people what happened, don’t ever be ashamed, they need to know so they can help you. I’m glad you’re back at school so I can see you again. You’re one of my favourite patients.”   
“You’re a good person, Carol.”   
“So are you Charlie,” Charlie suddenly grabbed into her for an endearing hug. Carol patted him on the back in the same way a heart beats, knowing that her blouse and jacket would now need dry cleaning “Ok, now, let’s go watch some soccer and then go back for the morning tea at the funeral home.”  
“I hope they have cake.”  
“Cake and ice-cream in one day?” Caroline questioned.   
“I’m celebrating my birthday.”  
“It’s not your birthday…?”   
“It is now. Now I’m New Charlie.”   
“Ok New Charlie, because it’s your birthday, I won’t tell anyone about your ice-cream snack, so now you can have cake as well.”  
“You’re the best person every Carol. Now come on!” He yanked Carol by the hand back across to the soccer fields so they could watch the final quarter before returning to the funeral home in time for the reception. The local media was beginning to gather outside to snap photos of those who attended.   
Carol quickly snuck Charlie in before he was seen, slipping him into the bathroom to wash his face before facing the crowd. Megan saw her arrive and walked over.   
“How’s the kid?”   
“He’s ok, I think he’ll get through this trauma. I think that was him closing the chapter. He’s just freshening up and getting ready to face people out there. How was the service.”  
“Brief, a lot of people are talking about the kid.”   
“Good, maybe they’ll wake up before it happens to another loved one. If they’d taken any notice of the kids before they’d have known that this was happening long before two bodies were put into boxes.”  
“I agree babe. Here, got you an orange juice, this is the driest funeral I’ve ever had the misfortune to attend.” Megan passed her a large, ice cold glass of orange juice.   
“How are the snacks?”  
“Nothing worth eating, standard school canteen shit.”  
“Canteen in your day or mine?” Carol asked cheekily, bringing a smile to Megan’s face.   
“Very funny madame, I was going to take you to get something nice for lunch but after that comment, I might just drop you off at work again without naught but an apple.”  
“But I’ll faint from hunger and you’ll have to look after me.” Carol joked.   
“Alright, we can get something like sushi on the way back to the school, can’t have you going hungry.”  
“No, I have so much to do.”  
“And you’re luck you’re cute, especially in all black.”  
“And you with your shiny badge and nicely pressed uniform. Very sexy.”   
“Is it wrong to sweet talk at a funeral?”  
“You’d be surprised how funerals make people want sex, there’s probably a lot of Viagra being popped at this minute for after the drive home.” Carol surveyed the crowd of mostly over forties.   
“I guess death brings together everyone, in an individual sense.”   
“Hmm, and then maybe we are not so differently wired, if we enjoy… well, you know.” Carol smirked at Megan as they watched the caskets being loaded into the cars to be taken to their graves at Cornelian Bay cemetery.   
“Do you want to watch them get buried or do you want to head to get food and go back to work?”  
“Yeah, that, just let me make sure Charlie is ok,” Carol looked around and found Charlie happily chatting with newly found family members “He’s ok, I’ll see him at school, I think his life is looking up.”  
“That means two dreams have come true. He’s got a loving family that he always wanted and needed, and we got to perfect our skills.”  
“A third would be that we don’t have another mill of child exploitation material surfacing. Not kids will be harmed at the hands of those two monsters.”  
“Good work on us then.”  
“Good work on us.” Carol repeated as they got into Megan’s patrol car.  
“Still hungry?”  
“I think I’ll be ok actually. I feel some thoughts coming on I need to prepare for. Thoughts about our trio. I’ve had some more ideas on the physical set up.”   
“I’ll get you a takeaway from Zambreo’s then, you can put that in the fridge at work in case you stay late.”  
“I expect to stay late tonight, what about you?”  
“Late, but only because I have to go to my doctor and get my hormone scripts.”  
“Alright, just don’t forget to fill them, you’re almost out, and you get all moody if you accidentally skip a dose. It’s like you’re on your period.”  
“I am nothing like a period, that’s the one thing I’ll never experience thankfully. You’re like a completely different person on your period.”  
“Am I?”  
“Are you ever, you cried at a cat meme last month. And because the Indian food I brought home for you tasted so good and you could only give the take-away five stars out of five and you felt they were more like a nine-out-of-ten sort-of place.” Megan chucked as they pulled into the drive through.  
“Well four and five-out-of-five are completely different fractional values than nine-out-of-ten.” Carol reiterated.   
“Oh, I agree with you, a much fairer valuing system, however; not reason to sob while eating Indian food and watching the Jack the Ripper series on Netflix. It was funny, I had to try so hard not to laugh at you because I thought you could turn murderous at any given moment.”  
“I couldn’t murder you. I like your dick too - ” Carol was cut off.   
“Welcome to Zamberos Moonah can I take your order, please?” A young sounding, female voice said.   
“Hi, yeah I would like a chicken chipotle with extra green-leaf salad, brown rice, but no beans. Have you got diet coke?”  
“Yes, in a 250ml bottle.”  
“One of those please, and my fiancée is still deciding.” Megan smirked at Carol, hoping that the attendant had heard the later part of their conversation, Carol turned a shade of pink.  
“Yep, that’s ok, I can wait” The attendant assured.   
“I’ll also get a chicken chipotle, white rice, all the trimmings and extra avocado.” Carol said shyly.   
“Any drinks with that one?”  
“A coffee with two sugars please.”  
“Not a problem, that’s $25.95 just drive through to the second window please.”  
Carol sunk slightly in her chair and tried to look out the window and hide her face while Megan paid for their food. Megan continued to take pleasure in Carol’s embarrassment until they were back onto the main road which then allowed her to roar with hearty laughter. Carol enjoyed seeing Megan so joyous even if it was at her own expense.   
“So, you were saying that you couldn’t kill me because you like my dick too…” Megan tried to ask seriously.   
“Well, I think I am reconsidering my position on that statement I think,” She added smiling “We can never eat there again, or at least, you alone are doing the drive-thru runs.”   
“I still want you to explain what you were going to explain about my dick.”  
“I like your dick too much to kill you, but I’m not so against sedating you, taking a cast of it, and making my own vibrator of it, so I can use without you, and you can go for a swim with Timothy.”   
“Oooooooohhhh,” Megan teased “You’re threatening to make me sleep with the fishes.”  
“What’s put you in such a great mood?” Carol tilted her head curiously.  
“I just enjoyed seeing the positive results of what we’ve been doing,” Megan gave Carol a warning look, gesturing to a speaker that doubled as a listening device if the Police need evidence that was confessed to in the car trips between arrest and incarceration.  
“Oh,” Carol said quietly, thinking for a moment “Well, it’ll be a nice feeling when I can see Charlie’s mental health and you can catch his parent’s killer.”  
“Exactly, but at least he’s free of the monsters for now.”  
“And he’ll be equipped to deal with them in the future. He’ll have like a sixth sense for abuse victims alike. I hope he grows a little more developmentally, otherwise when his Grandparents are old and dying, life will be hard for him and he may end up in the care of a resentful older brother.”   
“Why do you say resentful?”  
“Well, it’s not like he wants to have to look after his baby brother in adult life, not long term at least, and if Charlie hasn’t reached a maturity where he’s allowed independent living…”  
“Look let me butt in here, can we just focus on the little good we’ve done? Just don’t kill my buzz ok?”  
“Alright, I’m sorry, thanks for lunch, you’re right, I’ll stop being a glass-half-empty.”  
“I have to follow up on what the kid said at the funeral, it’ll go into the case confirming their maltreatment, not that it will matter, but if they move and have to transfer schools it will be useful for putting on his file so he can continue getting help and support.”  
“Yeah, I’m also going to put all under his student support system file, for the same reason. Only the psych at his new school or if I refer him will be able to access it, other than certain other, relevant staff.”   
“I wonder what our triple ‘s’ file would have said if we had, had one?” Megan asked curiously.   
“I’ll text it to you because this is my stop.” Megan pulled the car into the school’s lot and turned off the engine.   
“Kiss goodbye.”   
Carol kissed her passionately “I love you, I’ll text you, thanks for the food, have a good rest of your day. Hey, can you turn the lights on and sirens as you leave just for fun? I love watching the cars go slower on the Brooker when they spot you come here. It’s a fascinating human quirk.”  
“A quirk?”  
“Well if they’re not guilty of anything they don’t have anything hide, so why adjust your behaviour. If you’re not doing anything, you shouldn’t worry, it’s suspicious if you ask me, I often wonder why they slow down.”  
“Now you have me curious, I’m going to pay more attention, so yeah I will, just to test your theory.” Megan flicked her lights and sirens on before easily merging traffic with a newly-slowed highway, Carol gave a satisfied smile. Heading into work she was confronted by Principal Kent Jones in a strange, monotone hounds-tooth suit with mustard-yellow polo shirt ensemble. He was red faced, and his moustache twitched.   
“You’re late.”  
“I had the funeral to go to, in support of Charlie’s Family, I cleared my schedule because of, and I’ll be logging it as three hours leave without pay, so don’t worry.”  
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”  
“About?”  
“Can we talk privately?”  
“Of course, you’re afforded the same services as the students, let’s step into my office.” Carol gestured down the hallway with her silver-wrapped chipotle.   
“Good, thank you.” It was rare for Jones to use manners. He waddled behind her, heaving his beer gut with heavy-healed steps to her office.   
“Come in, I’ll make you a drink.” She reached over and tapped the jug before turning on the lights. She didn’t open the blinds for privacy sakes.   
“Let me get this straight though, if I confess to doing something, you can’t do anything, but if I’m planning to hurt someone, you’re legally obligated to try and stop me. Right?”   
“There are some exceptions, like if children are involved in something beyond the normal adult-child relationship, but in general, yes, that’s how my job works. Whatever is the matter Jones you look like a wreck?” Carol sat in her armchair and looked fake concerned. She was genuinely interested in what he was going to say, but she didn’t care for his feelings.   
“Right, fuck, ok, well, I’mma sit down,” He manoeuvred his large rump into the sagging chair “You know Facebook, right?”   
“Of course, practically everyone has an account. What’s the matter with Facebook?” Carol opened a new file and started to take notes.   
“Well it’s not Facebook that’s the problem, it’s a person on Facebook.”   
“Ok, tell me as much or as little as you want to. I’m not here to judge.”   
“Well, me and my wife, we’re old right? So, she doesn’t like to… er… do the dirty with me very often, but I’m still… I still want to, and I’m not satisfied. I feel down the rabbit hole one night and after wanking off to a bit of… content, I got a friend request on Facebook from a cute girl, said she was 19, from Sydney, she saw my profile and she claimed it was a real turn on. Well I got drunk off that kind of shit, and before you know it, I’m sending pictures and cash to her in return for other pictures. I didn’t think anything of it, just a little bit of… content for me to get off on when my wife isn’t putting out. Anyway, long story short. Someone put this under my door this morning.” He took from his inside pocket a folded piece of paper, carefully handing it to Carol.   
Carol unfolded the letter, and what it seemed to be was screen captures of the explicit camming Jones had taken part with this girl. The letter was a bunch of pictures and then finally a statement which said “How would you like to know that this girl, Yumio_98 is actually a 17-year-old child from your school, Mr. Jones. You have until 4pm tomorrow to get together five thousand dollars of washed money, you’ll leave it in your office, and you’ll go home early. Leave the office unlocked. Failure to do so will result on mass distribution of our findings to the community. We will also post this online on the front page of the school internet. Once we have the money, you will receive contact and we will cease our campaign. Your wife is on our email chain, how would she feel knowing that you’re cheating on her with a student? Choose carefully Kent Jones.”  
“You’ve had a wormer in your system it seems.”  
“Wormer, what’s a wormer?”   
“It’s an old-school term or hacker. Err, content sites often have spyware and viruses encrypted into their videos so that when you download them, you’re activating the lines of code which can access your computer, files and all. In this case they hacked your webcam and took screenshots. Clever, actually.”  
“CLEVER?! ARE YOU FOR REAL DOC-HEAD?! How am I meant to find five grand in a little over twenty-four-hours to pay off this person.”  
“You’re really going to pay?”  
“Well I have to, this could destroy my life. If I go to police and say someone is blackmailing me, they’re gonna want to know everything, and that’ll destroy my life too.”  
Carol sighed and faked being contemplative “Has your wife got any valuable purses or jewellery that you could sell for cash quickly, what about your car, you could say rode your car off, the tow company already came to collect it, and then you could get a new car on finance. You wife could never know.”   
“Sell my car?!” He looked as though his head was erupting.   
“Well, I am trying to help you find a solution. Are we even certain that this is the actual student? I mean, forgive me if this sound racist, but; could the person have mistaken the screen Asian for the student? I mean, this really could be anyone.”  
“There’s a tattoo, they sent me a message of the student’s tattoo vs. the one on the screen, it matches. I feel like a group targeted me. I mean what’s she even doing online.”  
“I can’t theorise on that. Most students do have an online presence, and, given the decline of quality sex education, a lot of the way students act sexually is based on what they see in... err… content, and what they hear from their friends and family. If sexualised activity was normalised in their upbringing, this student may likely think that this is a normal behaviour.”  
“You think their family could be involved.”  
“Look at Charlie’s parents and what they did, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a ring in this school that we’ve stumbled upon. I don’t like to think about it much, I can only go off what students choose to tell me and report from there. I think it could be a family, it could be a pimp, there’s no way of knowing.”  
“Can you pull this kid in, and talk to her? Ask her if she’s doing this.”  
“I can’t do that Kent, that’s coercion. That’s implanting the idea, that’s not my job. I can only talk about what they bring up and how it makes them feel, I can’t spontaneously ask ‘Hey, did you masturbate on a webcam with the principal of the school? Are you extorting money?’ what do you honestly expect me to say?”  
“I expect you to do your fucking job. I’m being pinned as a predator. Fuck. My life is over. How was I supposed to know that she was 17, not 19, I mean look at her, how?”  
“The users of the internet have the responsibility to know the content that they’re look for, and how to access it safely. Like sure porn is legal if it’s consensual and depicting just adult humans. If you stuck to that, maybe searched for it, you wouldn’t be in this situation, but at some point, while you were down your rabbit hole, you actively found this stuff, and engaged with it. It’s not like you just stumbled upon it, or you got redirected to it, you added this girl on skype from just having met her on Facebook and no questions asked, you got your dick out for her. If you ask me, if you don’t have anything to hide, and you’re confident this girl is not the student from the school then you should be confident enough to march into the police station and make a report of revenge porn, cyber stalking and blackmailing. If you think you have something that you need to hide, the maybe you deserve what’s happening. Pay up or go to the police, I can’t tell you what to do.” Carol wrote a few more notes, she then watched as Kent paced. While he wasn’t directly watching her, she swapped the letters he had given her, with folded plain printer paper. She needed this for reasons she did not yet know. Kent continued pacing.   
“Fuck it, I’ll sell the car, quick give me back those pictures,” Carol gave him the blank paper. As expected, he tucked it into the inside of his jacket without looking at it again “Pretend this conversation never happened Doc, and if you tell anyone, I’ll make your life really hard.”  
“Ok Kent, good luck, shut the door on your way out, I have to prepare for afternoon sessions. With students. Goodbye.” Kent slammed the door loudly, it shook the wall slightly. Carol was bemused by the interaction and smiled about it over a fresh coffee. She then logged into Chelsea’s account to see if her and Lou were in on this plan.   
As expected, the girls had plotted to exploit the principal for money.   
“I can see he went and saw the doctor, he looks furious, I guess he might have asked her for advice on what to do about it, she can’t tell anyone unless she can prove he had a plan. I wonder what she’s going to do.” Chelsea messaged to Lou.   
“Who cares, this is going to be an awesome shit storm, whatever happens, money or not, I hope we get rid of him.”  
“Any principal has to be better than this one. He’s a cockwobble.”   
“I can’t believe he fell for it.” Lou messaged “I mean, all we did was photoshop my tattoo into the screen grabs we took, and Bob’s your uncle, Fanny’s your aunt, he thinks it’s me? White middle-aged men are so racist.  
“I’m just thankful we didn’t have to cam with him to make this happen, we could both be charged with distribution.”  
“I guess we are lucky that he’s a racist that thinks we all look the same.”  
“I mean it is true, in the sense that you all look like you in your twenties, until you’re eighty, and then all of a sudden you’re Sophie the Grandmother from Howl’s Moving Castle.”  
“Accurate, only instead of a sweet, innocent old lady, I’m going to be a goth that throws bat toys at visitors until they leave and come out with inappropriate sex stories at the Christmas table. Just to make people squirm.” Lou sent many emojis.   
“Hahahaha I hope I live to see that. That would be fantastic. I hope to live to an old enough age where a television news crew interviews me on my birthday because they always ask the ‘and what’s the secret to your long life?’ and I am going to full on tell them that I eat a pound of bacon, smoke weed, masturbate as much as possible every day, just to watch his face drop and see what they end up actually cropping the footage to.”   
“Probably just a pound of bacon, you should list as many inappropriate things as you can at them, so they have to pick the lesser of both evils. Oh, oh, oh, and if they misquote you online, share it to whatever the Facebook is of the future and correct them by typing up all of the content you told them, force them to release a tape of it, cause uproar and media censorship.”  
“Great idea Lou. Alright, I’ll keep an eye on Jonesy-boy, see if he brings up the coin.”  
“Well it’ll either be that or the cops.”  
“Still interesting either way.”  
“Well, I want the money personally, we could flee to somewhere awesome, like the remote northern territory, and pretend we’re from New Zealand, make a fresh start.”  
“Personally, I want to see how much weed you can smoke using five grand. I bet it will be like, a five-week white-out.”  
“What’s a white-out?”  
“Well you’ve heard of black-out drunk, well it’s like that, but being ‘too high’ and you’re in an almost unconscious daze. It’s amazing, it’s like you’re floating on smoke.”   
“Well I should hope you could get white-out level high for 5k.”   
“Or we could buy some Gucci?”   
“I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens, see you at recess.” Megan signed off. Lou shortly after.   
Carol was almost proud of how ambitious the girls’ plan for money had been, and she was glad to read that they’d only photoshopped a porn-star instead of creating their own. Eventually the police would find it’s fake, however; there would still be a stigma that attaches themselves to males accused of sexual misconduct: always guilty to be proved as innocent, which is the complete opposite to how the law is designed. Carol believed that sexual crime was wholeheartedly worse than murder. Murder is final, there’s an end. There isn’t an end for survivors of sexual assault, not until the day they die. She wished that sexual crimes received the same, if not more penalties and jail time than murder.   
Cybercrime receives higher sentencing than both murder and sexual assault which is insulting, because a virtual assault such as: stealing money or bitcoin, stealing a photo, posting a rude mean, making some online hate are all things that can be avoided and solved by disconnecting. No one is physically hurt. It also seemed to Carol that cyber-crime such as hacking government websites, or online sit-ins are so frightening to the older generations that don’t understand the newer technology, that they just want criminals guilty of not using a computer correctly, put away for as long as possible. Murder is sensationalised, rape is ignored and the victims’ faults, while getting into a virtual place you don’t have the right to access? How dare you, worst crime ever.   
“In a way,” Carol said to herself “The internet is like the Unite d’Habitation; the government wants to standardise it, make it safe and the same for everyone. But happiness isn’t universally the same, needs and desires are either, and soon people get bored and start straying outside the apartment block and soon they’re neck deep in the web accessing stuff that they get off on, but never expected to find. We are all rats in the project, learning to press buttons for rewards, and when the high wears off about what we have been searching, we start looking for more intense pleasures.” Carol decided to send a message about the situation to Megan, Carol explained both perspectives of what is going on, Lou and Chelsea’s as well as Kent Jones.   
“Kenty is in trouble then, looks like I can seize his computers to find out.”  
“What about the girls, they shouldn’t get into trouble. It’ll ruin our plan.”  
“That’s easy, I’ll just delete the meta data from what they have been posting, that way it could have been bounced around the world before landing in Kent Jones’s lap.”  
“Good, I want everyone to doubt Kenty. I want him pinned as part of the reason why a kid dies soon.”  
“I know, and this is great ground work being put in place. You should report him anonymously to I.T and H.R see if they can’t get access to his personal search logs and contact logs from work.   
“Right, and after my next session with Lou, I’ll get her to confirm the picture isn’t off her and I’ll try and frame Michael as posting the picture. Or Amy, I’m sure the photo they used to merge with the screen-shots has already been passed around a few people of her age group. Just finding who has a copy will be the important part. I’ll check Chelsea first and work my way around. You bring down Kent to an appropriate level, but don’t arrest him, he needs to be around to see his drama unfold. He can be suspended from work or whatever, that’d be HR’s call.”  
“This is great, I can feel it brewing like a storm.”  
“It’s going be a perfect storm. Alright, love you, buy, work to do.”  
“Same, love you too.”   
Carol decided to call crime stoppers from the spoofed number belonging to Chelsea. She reported that her friend was supposedly seeing a way older guy and he was paying her to take her clothes off. Carol was a natural mimic, finding it easy to emulate younger sounding voices and accents. Carol told them that she had a print out of screenshots between them and they directed her to send a copy of it to the police. Carol agreed and hung up the phone.   
Shortly after the conversation, uniformed police were on Campus arresting Mr. Jones. As he was walked across the parking lot in cuffs, the entire student body recorded his demise with their phones. Carol watched from the comfort of her office window, smugly sipping from the coffee Megan bought her. The little fat man looked as though he was turning into a dried tomato. The school press surrounded the car, taking pictures of its every angle, many, Carol guessed, would be sending it to major news outlets by social media platforms, or simply going Live directly to their feeds. Either way, world-wide in less than an hour, she predicted. It was a beautiful slaughter.


End file.
